il2 LLOYD'S NATURAL HtSTORV. 



him. He writes that "all the means of destruction which have 

 yet been devised seem insufficient to check the inordinate 

 multiplication of these greedy hosts. Only Providence and the 

 useful predacious animals, to which man is so hostile, can help 

 him. ' Borers ' have been used with good results, with which, 

 where the soil permits it, holes are made in the ground 12-18 

 cm. in circumference and 60 cm. deep. When the Voles fall 

 in, instead of burrowing their way out, they devour each other. 

 When the fields were being ploughed, children followed with 

 sticks, and destroyed as many as possible. Smoke has been 

 driven into the burrows, poisoned grain thrown in, whole fields 

 saturated with a decoction of strychnine or spurge. In short, 

 every means has been adopted to get rid of this terrible pest ; 

 but in general all these methods have proved nearly useless, 

 and some of them, especially poisoning, highly dangerous. 

 The most efficacious poison not only destroys all the Voles in 

 a field, but likewise their worst enemies, and consequently our 

 friends, Foxes, Martens, Stoats, Weazels, Buzzards, Owls, and 

 Rooks, besides Partridges, Hares, and domestic animals, from 

 Pigeons to Horses and Oxen — a sufficient reason for abstaining 

 altogether from the use of poison. It is painful to all natura- 

 lists and lovers of animals to see the enemies of the Voles, as 

 in 1872, poisoned and destroyed instead of cared for and pro- 

 tected. Short-sighted people — farmers who cared more for 

 hare-hunting than for making the best use of the land — were 

 delighted when they found, besides dead Voles, hundreds of 

 poisoned Rooks, Buzzards, Owls, Foxes, Weasels, and Stoats ; 

 but they did not consider what mischief they had entailed upon 

 themselves in their senseless efforts to destroy the Voles. It 

 was not the destruction of the useful but despised Vole-killers 

 that concerned them, but when Hares, Partridges, and domestic 

 animals were also poisoned, they were at last induced to give 

 up the use of poison. Till then, the warnings of far-seeing 



I 



