MICE AND VOLES. 125 



1. Damage Done. 



'Voles in daytime live chiefly in the soil, into which they 

 burrow in all directions. Their burrows are just below the 

 surface of the ground, and by burrowing in forest nurseries, 

 plantations and natural regeneration-areas, they uproot thou- 

 sands of plants and injure drains and ditches. They are 

 chiefly vegetable-eaters, devouring fruits and seeds, cutting 

 through the roots of young plants in the ground, gnawing 

 their shoots, but they also attack young birds. 



During winter they gnaw the bark of plants chiefly of broad- 

 leaved species from the collum up to ten inches, or as far as 

 the grass reaches, in strips or rings. 



Voles breed much more rapidly than mice, the southern field- 

 vole {Arvic(Aa arvalis, Selys.)* being especially reproductive. 



The water-vole {A. am2)hihius, Desm.), and the common 

 field-vole {A. af/restis, Bias.), do the most damage. The water- 

 vole lives not only near water, but also in the forest, and does 

 much damage by burrowing, and by cutting-off the tap-root 

 of stems up to the thickness of a man's arm, that naturally 

 kills them. Oak and ash suffer most in this way, also poplars, 

 willows, apple-trees, etc. ; less : beech and conifers. The water- 

 vole also frequently injures banks and dams ; it has done 

 much damage in the forests occasionally inundated by the 

 Danube, but is fortunately never very numerous. 



The bank*- vole {HypiuUeus (jlareolus, Wagn.) is extremely 

 active, and inhabits chiefly the borders of forests, bushy 

 land amongst fields, and forest-glades with advance-growth, 

 rather than dense forest. It gnaws larches, black pines, 

 aspen, and other trees and shrubs, and eats and carries off 

 the pine-buds. 



The common field-vole {Arvicola agrestis, Bias.) is the 

 greatest scourge of the agriculturist, and comes from the 

 fields into light forests, where it does enormous damage. In 

 the winters of 1822-23, 1830-31, 1840-41, 1856-57, 1861-62, 

 1868-64, 1870-71, 1871-72, 1872-73, 1878-79, 1889-90, 

 1892-93, this species was chief among the swarms of mice 



* About 75 per cent, of them are 0, and a mother vole has eight to 

 ten young every six to eight weeks, from March till late in autumn. A o begins 

 breeding when eight weeks old, and may have 10,000 descendants in a year. 



