Report of Meetings for 1888. By J. Hardy. 179 



regularly visited by the Cuckoos in summer to feed on the 

 gooseberry caterpillars, and they are then very tame and 

 venturesome. 



Shawdon Hall is 245.8 feet above sea-level. After leaving it 

 on the way to the entrance to Lincombe dean, where the marquee 

 for dinner was pitched in a sheltered dell, attention was called 

 to the attacks made by unprecedented numbers of "Water-voles 

 (Arvicola amphibia) on the grass of the cow pasture. For two 

 years, Mr William Thompson, the land-steward, told us they had 

 come out of the hedge-row ditches, and open casts, and were 

 effectually baring the turf, by consuming the grass roots. This 

 was done in broad patches, which, working socially, they had 

 made as naked as the floor of a house, perforating the ground as 

 they do their native burnsides. They were being regularly 

 trapped by ordinary mole-traps ; in 1884, 546 were captured; in 

 1885, (date July 28) 600 were taken, and there still was left a 

 residue; in 1886, 700 or 800 were killed, and it was then 

 expected they were nearly extirpated. I examined two of them 

 and they were the true "Water-vole. They had also occupied 

 much of the sward of Shawdon Wood, whence they had invaded 

 the neighbouring pastures of Shawdon "Woodhouse. In speaking 

 of them afterwards, Mr Middleton Dand said that at Gloster Hill 

 near "Warkworth they had also become troublesome and were 

 turning up the soil, and rendering it dangerous to ride over the 

 ground they had undermined. During the summer of 1888, 

 according to the local newspapers, they have occasioned much 

 damage as well as obstruction to the mowers in the hay- fields 

 near Felton. During the winter 1888-9 they had transferred 

 themselves from the fields to the gardens, and were burrowing 

 beneath the celery, and gnawing the routs of young fruit trees. 

 It was observed that much earth-nut grows in the old grass 

 fields at Shawdon. 



The company for the day were under the presidency of the 

 Rev. David Paul, Roxburgh, and as he and several others were 

 obliged to leave early, he nominated Mr Matthew T. Culley of 

 Coupland Castle in the place of the late Mr Cadogan, as President 

 for 1888. The members dined under a tent, provided by Mr 

 Hall, Grlanton, Capt. F. M. Norman, R.N., occupying the chair, 

 who after dinner, read a letter prepared by a committee of 

 Berwick members, to be transmitted to Mrs Cadogan of 

 Brenkburn, to condole with her in the loss she and her family 



