THE SHORT-TAILED FIELD VOLE 



a liking for sweet things, as they gnawed 

 greedily at a lump of sugar that I dropped 

 into their cage, also licking up jam and honey. 

 Once I saw one catch and eat a fly that had 

 ventured into the cage, and the same mouse 

 ate another that I caught and put before it. 

 Small earth-worms were always attacked, so 

 there can be no doubt that in a wild state the 

 field vole eats a good many insects and grubs. 

 Like many other small animals it is certainly 

 not above tasting flesh if it chances across a 

 corpse, and, as I shall have presently to de- 

 scribe, will even sometimes eat its own friends 

 and relations ! 



Though I have given quite a long list of 

 things which I have found that voles will eat, 

 there is hardly anything which they are suffi- 

 cently fond of to be any use as a bait for 

 trapping them. Cheese does not attract them, 

 and they are the most difficult of all small 

 creatures to catch. The only bait that I have 

 found any good at all is a split yellow crocus 

 bulb. Even then I am not sure if luck has not 

 more to do with the voles being caught than 

 anything else. Indeed I quite believe that an 

 unbaited trap set in a vole's run is just as 

 likely to catch one as a baited ! 



s 273 



