50 OWLS 



been always followed by the antidote ; in other 

 words, the plague of voles has, shortly afterwards, 

 been followed by a sudden apparition of short-eared 

 owls. They remain as long as the voles remain, 

 and disappear when they disappear. More than 

 this ; they breed freely in the strange country, and, 

 what is most astonishing of all, their fecundity is 

 often increased nay, quadrupled by the abundant 

 food with which the voles supply them. They rear 

 two broods in a year instead of one, and many of 

 the nests actually contain, not five or six, but ten 

 or twelve eggs apiece. The great majority of the 

 witnesses, summoned before the committee of experts 

 who were appointed to investigate the subject, with 

 so high an authority as Sir Herbert Maxwell as 

 their chairman, and Mr Harting, the well-known 

 ornithologist, as their secretary, attributed the 

 severity of the plague to the wholesale destruc- 

 tion by gamekeepers of those beneficent animals 

 and birds weasels foremost among animals, and 

 buzzards, kestrel hawks, and, above all, owls among 

 birds which feed upon mice and so tend to 

 maintain the balance of Nature ; while they were 

 equally unanimous in considering that the most 

 potent factor in the limitation of the mischief done 

 was the advent of the short-eared owls, which dis- 



