GNAWING ANIMALS. 195 



fields, and eats grain, potatoes, turnips, and 

 carrots, and stores a large quantity of food 

 in its hiding-place. 



It also destroys roots of corn and grasses, and 

 occasionally devours young chickens, ducks, and 

 the eggs of ducks and geese. 



It is said to destroy a certain amount of 

 injurious insects, but the good it does is said to 

 be far outbalanced by the harm. 



The field vole, or short-tailed field mouse, lives 

 in pastures, preferring those which are low-lying 

 and damp. Large numbers are found together, 

 and they make deep burrows in the soil, each pair 

 having a special nest to itself, and bringing 

 forth three, four, or even more litters per year, 

 with four to ten young in each litter. Its 

 favourite food consists of roots, young shoots of 

 grass, and the tender bark of shrubs ; but nothing 

 of a vegetable nature comes amiss. Specially 

 destructive is it to permanent pasture. 



If you wish to keep your rats, mice, and voles, 

 which cause so serious a loss to agriculturists, 

 from increasing beyond reasonable limits, don't 

 exterminate the weasel, stoat, polecat, hedgehog, 

 owl, buzzard, kestrel hawk, and the smaller sea 

 gulls, for these are their natural enemies. 



