TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION D. — DEPT. ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY. 559 



FRIDAY, AUGUST 16, 1878. 



The following Papers were read : — 



1. Notes on a case of Commensalism in the Holothuria. 

 By Dr. A. F. Anderson. 



"2. On certain Osteological Characters in the Cervidce and their probable 

 bearings on the past History of the Group. By Sir Victor Brooke, Bart. 



3. The Habits of Ants. By Sir John Lubbock, F.R.S. 



4. On the Habits of the Field- Vole (Arvicola agrestis, L.). 

 By Sir Walter Elliot, F.R.S. 



The species above named, more commonly known as the short-tailed field-mouse, 

 has been observed of late to be annually increasing. In the early part of 1876, it 

 appeared in such numbers in the hill pasture farms of the border districts between 

 England and Scotland, and in the western parts of Yorkshire, as to cause serious 

 damage to the grazing ground on which the sheep mainly depend for maintenance 

 in spring, thereby inflicting serious loss on farmers by the impoverishment and death 

 of stock. Notwithstanding the efforts of the shepherds and their dogs, assisted by 

 an unusual influx of birds and beasts of prey — hawks, buzzards, owls, weasels, foxes, 

 &c. — their numbers were not sensibly diminished ; but on the approach of summer 

 they began to perish with hunger after exhausting their own means of subsistence, 

 and the few survivors were driven by starvation to their usual haunts. Their 

 favourite abodes are low-lying humid meadows and damp plantations, in which they 

 construct superficial burrows, breeding five or six times in the year, and producing 

 six to eight young at a birth. Autumnal rains and severe winter frosts generally 

 kill great numbers, and it is to an absence of these checks, during a series of mild 

 seasons from 1872-76, that their late abnormal increase is attributed. 



It is remarkable that during the same period a kindred foreign species, the 

 Arvicola arvalis, Pallas, was creating similar damage to the corn-fields of Austria 

 and Hungary, and only the other day a paragraph in the Times stated that they are 

 now destroying the wheat crop in Moldavia. 



Several instances are recorded of mischief done by the common vole to young 

 plantations, notably those described by Jesse in the royal forests of Hampshire and 

 Glouces tersh ire . 



These facts show that although they have hitherto confined their attacks (as 

 far as known) in our own country to woods and pastures, they may, under con- 

 ditions favourable to their increase, attack our cereal produce. It would be well, 

 therefore, for game preservers to consider whether they are not promoting such a 

 contingency by the persistent destruction, under the name of vermin, of the natural 

 enemies of the vole, and for farmers to reflect whether they may not carry too far 

 the extirpation of the mole, of which voles are a favourite prey. 



