278 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



CHARMAS GRAMIXIS IN SOUTHERN SCOTLAND. 



By Robert Service. 



Under the expressive designation of "hill-grubs," the shep- 

 herds of the southern uplands of Scotland have been familiar for 

 generations past with the larvae of the antler moth as a most 

 destructive pest, inferior in grass-eating powers only to those of 

 rabbits, and, at rare intervals, to those of the short-tailed field 

 vole. The details of the recent sudden outbreak of the last- 

 named small rodents over the northern parts of the Border 

 counties, and that so rapidly assumed the dimensions of a plague, 

 rendering necessary a Government Commission of Inquiry, 'are 

 quite familiar to naturalists. The only reason for mentioning 

 the vole plague of 1891, 1892, 1893 here is to point out that it 

 existed on practically the whole of the sheep-farm country that 

 extends from Eoxburglishire, along Tweedside, and the fine 

 ranges of hills where the sources of the Esk, Annan, Nith, Urr, 

 Dee, and Cree are found,— an old and historic land, full of the 

 memories of Border raids and forays, and of the later Cove- 

 nanting strife. And now the rolling green hills of Dumfries- 

 shire, and the more rugged, and more heathery, steeper and 

 more sterile, hills of Galloway are almost wholly given up to 

 sheep and grouse, instead of "being strongholds of^the ancient 

 fighting stock, which "made" so much history on both sides of 

 the Debateable Land. Little more than a year has elapsed since 

 the sheep-farmers congratulated themselves on having finally 

 got rid of the voles that caused so much alarm and loss. During 

 this spring and summer complaints have been many and deep 

 ot the widespread damage done by the "hill-grubs." So far as 

 I can see and hear in the course of long rambles through the 

 affected districts, the "hill-grubs," while present almost every- 

 where to the eyes of a close observer, have appeared to a 

 really destructive extent only in somewhat isolated farms and 

 patches. There is a badly affected area at the head of Esk- 

 dalemuir, and a second centre of destructive outbreak not far 

 from Elvanfoot Station, on the Caledonian Railway, where 

 the farms of Glengeith and Glenochar are specially badly 

 infested. The lands around Leadhills and Wanlockhead— the 

 highest-lying villages in Britain— have been sadly depreciated 

 this season, owing to the ravages of these caterpillars. It was 

 reported m the local newspaper, the 'Dumfries Courier,' that a 

 travelling grocer, in going along the road between these two 

 villages on June 22nd, drove over so many grubs that his cart- 

 wheels were quite clogged and wet with the juice of their bodies. 

 Massing over the country that lies between Queensberry and 

 the head of the Glenkens, we come to a fourth affected area, on 

 and around the head-waters of the Ken. The lands that inter. 



