Report of Committee of the Teviotdale Farmers' Club. 471 



This of course may be held as disposing of one theory set up by some exper- 

 ienced shepherds for the great increase of their numbers on the hills. The 

 mole — long a pest against which the pastoral farmer has made war — has now 

 been so nearly stamped out in the district that only a brief annual visit of 

 the mole-catcher is needed to keep it from doing appreciable damage. Some 

 shepherds have conjectured that the food of the mole, consisting cf snails, 

 worms, and various members of the insect tribe, having multiplied in absence 

 of the enemy, the mice have been attracted by, and thriven on, the abundance 

 of animal food thus left in store for them. But if it can be established that 

 the mouse of the hills does not feed on the same diet as the mole, and when 

 they can be had prefers the tenderest tit-bits of rich succulent grasses, it is 

 clear no such inducement was required to bring them to the upland pastures. 



A more plausable theory is that the mice have increased and multiplied 

 owing to the absence of their own natural enemies, such as weasels, owls, and 

 hawks. The gamekeeper is in his turn, the enemy of such beasts and birds 

 of prey, which destroy the game in the egg and when the birds are young in 

 preference to animals of inferior order. But in the district visited by the 

 committee no complaint is made that the keepers have been more than 

 ordinarily active in killing the natural ravagers of the game crop. Still, the 

 best remedy for the plague of mice will probably be found in the importation 

 to their haunts of greater numbers of their natural enemies, even though the 

 game should, to some extent, pay tribute to the conteracting influences. In 

 some parts of Eskdalemuir, where the mice have also done considerable 

 damage, it has lately been noted that the owls are increasing in numbers. It 

 is likely that the instinct of the birds of prey will direct them over the water- 

 shed, and they will be heartily welcomed by the farmers on the Boxburghshire 

 border. Bound the farmhouses of Howpasley and Craik there are dense fir 

 plantations, which would prove most desirable day retreats for the owl, and 

 the abundance of food awaiting it would make the region quite a paradise for 

 the solemn bird of night. Then the erection of a few stone cairns here and 

 there on the farms would afford accomodation for weasels, which would un- 

 doubtedly enjoy an abode in such plentifully stocked hunting grounds. The 

 cat is all very weU in its place, the dwelling-house, the stable or the granary, 

 but it could not be induced even by the presence of great spoil to domesticate 

 itself on the breezy hillsides of Upper Teviotdale ; while traps would require 

 to be very temptingly baited to compete with the sweet grasses of which, 

 unfortunately for the farmers, the mice have shown themselves so fond. 

 Besides, when an enemy has to be counted by millions, trapping could not 

 very considerably mitigate the evil. Boisoning has been suggested as a cure, 

 but the poison would require to be very carefully protected by placing it in 

 the runs of the vermin, or surrounding it with wire netting, as if other 

 animals besides those for which it is intended were to get access to it the cure 

 would be worse than the disease. 



The committee in reporting the result of their investigations to the Club 

 will probably suggest what appears to them the most effective remedy, and it 

 is understood that some of the members will take the advice of skilled natur- 

 alists on the subject. On one essential point they are agreed, that the plague 



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