128 Mr. Oliver's Notes on Natural History. 



in addition, be it remembered, to the manure then, and 

 still, raised on the farm. 



Is it not possible that the ravages of wireworm, and of 

 some other insects, may have been increased by our destruc- 

 tion of moles ? We have got nearly rid of moles, and the 

 ravages of wireworm seem to increase. The mole is well 

 known to be a voracious feeder, and when in large numbers 

 must have destroyed a great quantity of worms, insects, &c. 

 The rook, no doubt, will come in for a share of what the 

 mole took ; and thrushes and blackbirds have certainly in- 

 creased largely in numbers, in this district, since it has be- 

 come so much more covered with wood than it was. At one 

 time I had a cherry tree which afforded fruit sufficient for all 

 our wants, as well as for those of our feathered friends, who, 

 however, eventually became so numerous that they not only 

 did not leave us any cherries, but even pulled them all before 

 they were ripe ; and not only that, but by the time the cherry 

 raid was over, the gooseberries were so far ready as to render 

 it needless for the birds to gc elsewhere. Other small birds, 

 chiefly the chaffinch I think, have grown more numerous, 

 and this .may be keeping up a balance. 



It was always considered in my young days that the red 

 grouse never fed on corn, but if that was true I believe that 

 it is so no longer, and that the bird does now feed on oats. 

 There is an old saying, the terms of which I have forgotten, 

 in which the grouse either lauds himself or is lauded on ac- 

 count of his feathered legs and hardihood, making him inde- 

 pendent of corn and cultivated fields. 



Partridges now feed on turnips — Swedes principally — 

 during hard weather in winter. I first noticed that they did 

 so about ten years ago. 



About forty years ago a pair of ravens built yearly on an 

 inaccessible part of the rock on the top of Ruberslaw, and the 

 bird was not uncommon on the Border hills. 



Humble bees are much fewer than they were, and one sort 

 seems to have disappeared altogether, viz., a black bee with 

 a crimson hind end, and which had its nest in the earth like 

 the common bee. There still remain a very few of a brown 

 bee (the foggy) which makes its nest on the surface some- 

 what like the nest of a mouse, and I am sure that forty years 

 ago twenty such nests might have been found in one small 

 bog here. So numerous and troublesome were they that it 

 was with difficulty the grass could be mown for them. 



