140 COMMON r.lUTlSH ANIMALS 



and tlie angles of the cement spaces are rounded, 

 whereas the field vole has molars with simple roots 

 and with the enamel walls of the cement spaces 

 ending in sharp prismatic angles. 



The bank vole was first described as a native 

 animal by Yarrel in 1832. It is found in England, 

 Scotland, and Wales, but not in Ireland. It lives in 

 burrows, which it prefers to make in ivy-covered 

 hedge banks, and especially favours those that are 

 intersected with old roots. Bank voles also make 

 use of old mole-runs. 



From the hedgerows the bank or red vole finds its 

 way into gardens and devours crocus bulbs. Of 

 1000 put into a bank in our garden, only about five 

 escaped the jaws of this vole. They will also eat 

 newly sown peas and beans and fruit, and often do 

 considerable damage to trees by gnawing the bark. 

 Like lemmings they periodically breed in such vast 

 numbers as to produce a plague. Such a plague of 

 bank voles occurred in the Forest of Dean in 1813— 

 14, when numbers of hollies, young oaks and chest- 

 nuts were barked near the ground, and, being the 

 best climbers of all the voles, they gnawed the bark 

 at 3 feet to 4 feet up. All kinds of remedies were 

 used, but the most effective were holes dug 18 inches 

 to 20 inches wide at bottom, 2 feet long, 1^ feet 

 deep, and \) inches wide at the top. When the voles 

 had fallen into these pits they could not climb up 

 the inward-sloping sides. About 30,000 were thus 

 caught during one autumn, and it was calculated 

 that during the three or four months of their visita- 

 tion 200,000 were killed. 



