OF HARTING. 247 



the possibility of doubt. These facts, and others of 

 similar import which come to us from what we deem 

 good authority, have somewhat shaken our belief in 

 the innocence of the water vole, more particularly as 

 nine or ten out of every successive brood of newly- 

 hatched ducklings on these ponds (where the vole 

 abounds) have regularly disappeared every season. 

 Water voles are a favourite prey of the otter, and 

 many dogs that will not touch a common rat, except 

 to kill it and leave it, will greedily devour the vole; we 

 have seen retrievers and spaniels do this repeatedly. 



The Short-tailed Field Mouse, Field Vole, or Cam- 

 pagnol, is as common with us as the long-tailed Field 

 mouse. We are under the impression, however, that 

 among the scores of short-tailed mice that have passed 

 through our hands there are two distinct species, 

 Arvicola agrestis and A. riparia, but as they were all 

 caught in one of the up-hill covers, and the home of 

 the latter is said to be in low-lying wet pastures, we 

 have some doubts on the subject. These little creatures 

 are very destructive, and when they are numerous the 

 havoc they make in underwoods and plantations is 

 incredibly great. Not many years have passed since 

 a number of them made a raid on the jessamine plants 

 in the shrubbery at Uppark, which they very nearly 

 destroyed on the occasion by barking the stems from 

 the ground upwards to the height of four or five 

 inches ; but this was a trifling misdeed as compared 

 to that with which they are charged in "Jessie's 

 Gleanings." It is there recorded that in Dean Forest 

 in Gloucestershire, and the New Forest in Hampshire, 

 nearly all the young plants over an extent of many 

 hundred acres were destroyed in one season by the 

 Field mice, which swarmed there to such an extent 

 that in Dean Forest alone, between the months of 

 September and the following January, nearly thirty 

 thousand were caught in holes dug in the ground for 

 the purpose, but as it was calculated that a much 



