204 LLOYDS NATURAL HISTORY. 



gnaw them through, above, and drag the ears into their burrows. 

 During the harvest they follow the steps of the reapers from one 

 crop to another, devour the corn that has dropped among the 

 stubble, gatlier the ears up which have fallen in binding up the 

 sheaves, and at last find their way to the stack-yard, where they 

 find provision for the winter. In the woods they collect the 

 fallen haws, juniper-berries, beech mast, acorns, and nuts in their 

 burrows. During the hardest weather they fall into uninter- 

 rupted hibernation, but when milder weather returns they rouse 

 up, and feed on their stores. They are incredibly voracious, 

 and require much to satisfy them ; but they cannot do without 

 water. 



" Field- Voles are very gregarious, and live socially together, 

 at least in pairs, but more commonly in great hordes, and Jjiere- 

 fore they link one burrow to another. They multiply with 

 extreme rapidity. Even in April we find from four to eight 

 young in their warm nests, which lie from one to two feet below 

 the surface of the ground, and are softly lined with fine frag' 

 ments of grass or hay, and moss ; and in the course of the 

 summer the female produces young from four to six times more. 

 It is highly probable that the young of the first litter are them- 

 selves ready to breed in autumn, and the amazing increase in 

 their numbers is thus easily explained. 



" ' Under favourable circumstances,' says Blasius, ' the Field- 

 Vole multiplies in an incredible manner. Many instances are 

 known in which a large part of the harvest has been destroyed 

 over large tracts of country by their inordinate increase, and 

 more than a thousand acres of young birch-trees have been 

 destroyed by their gnawing the bark. Those who have never 

 experienced such a Vole-year can hardly form a conception of 

 the almost incredible swarms of Voles in the fields and planta- 

 tions. They often appear in a particular neighbourhood with- 

 QUt their gradual increase having been observed, as if they had 



