66 <WEE TIM'ROUS BEASTIES' 



into the question. Their report, although of 

 great interest, was practically of a negative 

 nature, as it was not found possible to refer 

 the extraordinary increase of the voles to any 

 one specific cause. These voles multiply very 

 quickly under favourable conditions, as of 

 weather and food supplies. The so-called 

 ' Lemming-years ' of Scandinavia supply an 

 analogous case. It is often asserted that a 

 principal cause of the vole plague has been the 

 destruction by gamekeepers and others of the 

 birds and beasts that prey on them ; yet similar 

 outbreaks are mentioned in history as far back 

 indeed as the year 1587, when the destruction 

 of ' vermin ' to any extent was surely unknown. 

 Wise Nature came to the rescue, as always ; 

 for an extraordinary influx of birds of prey 

 appeared on the scene, including numbers of 

 short-eared owls ; a singular circumstance being 

 that these birds nested more than once, and 

 laid up to twelve and thirteen eggs instead of 

 five or six at most. 



Sitting up in a characteristic attitude, feeding 

 on a grass-stalk held between its little fore-paws, 

 is another vole, somewhat smaller, neater and 

 prettier than the last, the red or bank vole, 

 Arvicola glareolus. This is of a reddish chest- 

 nut colour above and whitish beneath, with 



