11 A T. 



.14! 



course of some of those rivers which rise in the most 

 elevated, bleak, and barren places, and flow through 

 nil varieties of soil till they meet the sea in the very 

 richest. The Tay is the preferable river for this 

 purpose ; but years would be necessary for the proper 

 examination of it. Until such surveys are made by 

 competent persons.untrammelled by any preconceived 

 theory, the natural history of our river animals, few 

 as they are, in so far as the mammalia are concerned, 

 must remain very imperfect. This species is known 

 to the Highlanders ; but they have not an original 

 Gaelic name for it. They call it radan uisg, which 

 is the Gaelic for " water-rat." 



THE RANK. VOLE (A. riparin) is a much smaller 

 animal than the former, and not so aquatic in its 

 habits. It lives much under covers, and, on account 

 of this, and of its small size, it is but rarely seen. 

 There has been no very good description of its habits 

 published anywhere, and, as a British animal, it has 

 been known only during a very few years, and it is 

 still known only as rare and local. Ignorance of the 

 existence of a rodent, animal may be in general taken 

 as a presumption, though not perhaps as an absolute 

 proof, that it is harmless. This species was first ob- 

 served in Essex, in the year 185-2, by Mr. Yarrell, 

 and it has since been found in various other places, 

 but always on the low and rich grounds. It may 

 have often been seen before this, but mistaken for the 

 Held or meadow species, which are very abundant. 

 To a cursory observer they are not unlike each other ; 

 but this one is smaller, more feeble and contracted in 

 the anterior part, of the body, and has the ears more 

 conspicuous, and the tail larger considerably larger. 

 The habitats are different too, at least in so far as 

 the localities of this one are known ; for the common 

 field-vole does not reside chiefly about hedges and 

 ditches, but rather in the meadows ; and, according 

 to Mr. Yarrell, this one uses wool and other animal 

 fibres in the construction of its nest, while the other 

 ues vegetable substances only. The colours are : 

 rusty brown on the back, ash colour on the sides, and 

 white on the under part ; the tail is dusky on the 

 upper side, and whitish on the under. The tail is 

 slender, but it does not taper to a point like the tails 

 of rats, and it is a little bushy at the end. The 

 dimensions as given are : the head an inch long, the 

 body two inches and a third, the tail an inch and two- 

 third.*, and the ears rather less than half an inch. 

 There is every reason to believe that this species is 

 pretty generally distributed in the warmer parts of 

 the country, and that the low sidling noise that we 

 so often hear under hedges and low creeping brakes 

 on fine days is its cry. It is probable also that some 

 of the little foot-prints that, are made in the snow 

 under hedges are made by this animal. 



FIELD- VOLE (A. agrestis). This is the short-tailed 

 field mouse, the meadow mouse, and various other 

 names ; and, though it is not a true mouse, all the 

 epithets are applicable, as the animal ranges in all 

 these places ; and sometimes comes upon a locality 

 in such an overwhelming flood of numbers that, small 

 as it is. the damage which it does would be altogether 

 incredible, were it not known and felt in such a way 

 as to leave no room for scepticism. 



It is a burrowing animal, and takes np its winter 

 quarters either in a burrow of its own digging or in 

 the deserted run of the mole. In summer it lives 

 and often nestles in the tall and coarse herbage by 

 the sides of ponds and morasses in meadows ; and at 



this season it is but rarely found upon very dry 

 grounds. The reason why these do not suit it is 

 easily seen : at all times it prefers fleshy and pulpy 

 roots to every other kind of food ; and they form its 

 chief subsistence during the summer, though when 

 the grain is matured in the fields it pays them a visit 

 also. The favourite roots are both most abundant 

 and most easily dug out in the soft grounds, and this 

 is the reason why the animal prefers these. The 

 nest is constructed entirely of vegetable fibres, and 

 the number of the young at a litter averages about 

 six. The animals are exceedingly voracious, and so 

 impatient of hunger that they have been known to 

 eat their own species in cases of extremity, though, 

 if they can procure vegetable food, they never touch 

 an animal substance. 



The length of the full-grown field-vole is rather 

 more than four inches, exclusive of the tail, which is 

 about an inch and a quarter. The ears are not half 

 an inch long, and the tips of them just appear above 

 the fur. The thumbs on the fore-paws are mere 

 rudimental tubercles, without the slightest vestige of 

 nails. It is found in most of the lowland places of 

 the British islands, arid it is not uncommon in the 

 Orkney isles, where the water-vole does not occur ; 

 but it is not found in the mountains. It is in fact 

 strictly a champaign animal, frequenting meadows 

 and gardens, and the fields generally according to 

 the seasons. Its depredations in the corn-fields are 

 not very different from those of the field mice, so 

 long as there are grains to be found ; but when the 

 animals are in numbers, they are apt to pass to the 

 autumn-sown crops, and completely clear them roots 

 and all. In gardens they are also peculiarly destruc- 

 tive, not only by eating seeds, but by destroying the 

 roots and the stems of valuable pl-ants. They are 

 also particularly destructive in nursery-grounds, where 

 trees are grown in close beds. They conceal them- 

 selves in them, and strip the young trees of the bark 

 for some distance above the ground, by which means 

 the tree is as effectually killed as if an American 

 back-woodsman girdled it with bis axe. 



The royal forests in England have sometimes been 

 attacked by countless thousands of them, the injury 

 done by which to the young trees to all trees indeed 

 with succulent bark has been most extensive, and, 

 only that the ravages are directed to a different kind 

 of vegetation, the mischief done puts one more in 

 mind of what is said of the plague of locusts than of 

 I any thing else. Singly, these are very feeble crea- 

 tures ; but they show, in a very striking manner, what 

 numbers can accomplish ; and this is one among the 

 many practical proofs that we have of the fact, that 

 little foes which make their attacks in large numbers 

 are always the most difficult to deal with. 



When the field-voles muster in the full array of 

 their numbers, which they sometimes do both in 

 Britain and on the continent though in Britain their 

 ravages have hitherto been confined to the southerly 

 parts of the island, and have been most serious in 

 the royal forests they commit great devastation. 

 On the continent, especially in some parts of Belgium 

 and the north of France, they sweep the lands of the 

 agriculturists with terrible destruction. They first attack 

 the harvest fields, upon which they levy severe contri- 

 butions, then they betake themselves to the crops 

 that are on the ground, and, burrowing under the 

 surface, remain there till the whole is eaten up. 

 Their next resource is in the woods and copses, 



