458 The Plague of Field Mice, by Sir Walter Elliot. 



systematic destruction year after year of creatures like the 

 weasel, stoat, owls, and hawks of every kind, which live in a 

 great measure on rats, mice, " and such small gear," has been 

 followed by the natural results. Their part in the economy of 

 Nature is to keep the smaller animals within due bounds. The 

 removal of that check allows these to overpass their proper 

 limits. 



The doubt thrown on the other statement, that mice are rare 

 where moles abound, and vice versa, was due in part to an 

 erroneous explanation, advanced in support of it. Believing the 

 short-tailed mice to be insectivorous, like the shrew and the 

 mole, it had been supposed that they would thrive and multiply 

 on the more plentiful supply of worms, &c, ensured by the re- 

 moval of the latter, but this was contradicted by their decided 

 preference for a vegetable diet. The statement, however, first 

 broached, is not without foundation. Continental Naturalists^ 

 include the mole among the enemies of the Arvicolce, and an old 

 esteemed memberf of our own Club, distinguished for his accurate 

 and intelligent observation of natural phenomena, sent the follow- 

 ing results of his experience, in a letter to a local journal, dated 

 from Dunston Hill and Hedgeley, 15th July, 1876 :— " The 

 natural enemy of the little rodent which has done so much harm 

 in the Roxburghshire moorlands, is the mole, which is a most 

 voracious, carnivorous creature, preying greedily on its own 

 kind (the stronger killing the weaker) whenever there is any 

 deficiency of earthworms. 



" The moles will, infallibly, keep the short-tailed mouse-vole 

 in complete check, wherever the due balance of Nature is not 

 disturbed. The mole abounds up to great elevations upon the 

 Northumberland moors, and, as a moorland proprietor, I should 

 be very sorry to see it disturbed. It is a smaller variety than 

 the mole of the low country. By throwing its casts upon the 



among which the names of many spots, as the Brockielaw, the Brockcleugh, 

 Brockleburn, &c, survive to mark its former haunts. It is, however, still 

 preserved at Mellerstain. But the polecat, marten, and wild cat are extinct, 

 and the stoat is no longer numerous. A fair sprinkling of weasels, which, 

 in several parts of England, are called the mouse-hunt, or mouse-hunter , still 

 continues to elude the vigilance of the keeper, but when seen they meet with 

 no mercy. 



* Fatio, Campagnols du Leman, p. 15. 

 f Balph Carr- Ellison, Esq. 



