116 



NATURAL HISTORY. 



lower surface is pale grey or dirty white, and the tail is brown, above and greyish beneath. The 

 Field Vole is a very abundant species in the northern and central parts of Europe, but is wanting in 

 Ireland and south of the Alps and Pyrenees. It is usually found in damp places, especially in meadows 

 in the neighbourhood of woods and copses, where it forms burrows of considerable extent. Its food 

 consists almost exclusively of vegetable substances, such as roots and herbage, and in times of 

 scarcity it will climb up trees and bushes to feed on the tender parts of the bark. In case of necessity, 

 however, it does not disdain animal food, but will eat insects and meat, and even sometimes kill and 

 devour smaller individuals of its own species. It breeds three or four times in the year, producing 

 from four to six young at a birth, in a small round nest made of moss and leaves, among the roots of 

 the herbage in some hollow of the ground. Their increase, which would otherwise be very formidable, is 

 checked by the smaller predaceous beasts and birds, such as the Weasel, the Kestrel, and the Owls, 



SOUTHERN FIELD VOLE. 



which destroy them in great numbers. The BANK VOLE (Arvicola ylareolv.s*), the third British species, 

 which is chestnut-coloured, with white feet and with a longish tail, closely resembles the preceding 

 species in its habits, but feeds rather on fruits and roots than on herbage, and is far more addicted to a 

 diet of animal food, freely devouring insects, worms, snails, and even young birds and carrion. It is 

 pretty generally distributed over Europe, but not so uniformly as the Field Vole, which it even 

 exceeds in fecundity, the females producing from four to eight young three or four times in the 

 year, in a nest constructed of grass and moss placed in a hollow of the surface of the ground among 

 dense hei'bage. 



The Continent of Europe is inhabited by several other species of Voles, among which we may 

 notice the little SOUTHERN FIELD VOLE (Arvicola arvalis), which more or less completely takes 

 the place of our common Field Vole in Southern Europe, but also extends over the whole of 

 Central Europe, and into Western Asia. Several of these species, and others to which we cannot 

 specially refer, ascend to considerable elevations on the mountain-sides, but at least one species, 



* See An-icola rutilus, p. 117. 



