306 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



to be strong and health} 7 , but mostly rather small, for the greater part were 

 probably young ones. Three weeks after I revisited the place. The 

 number of voles had actually increased, but the animals were apparently in 

 a sickly state. Many had scurvy places or sores, often over the whole body, 

 and even in those which appeared sound, the skin was so loose and delicate 

 that it could not be roughly handled without destroying it. When I visited 

 the place for the third time, four weeks later, every trace of them had 

 disappeared. But the empty burrows and passages awakened a much more 

 dismal feeling than when they swarmed with life. People said that the 

 whole race had suddenly disappeared from the earth as if by magic. Many 

 may have perished from a devastating pestilence, and many have been 

 devoured by their fellows, as happens in captivity; but people also spoke 

 of the innumerable hosts that had swum across the Rhine at several places 

 in open day. No extraordinary increase was noticed anywhere over a wide 

 area; but they seem to have disappeared everywhere at the same time, 

 without reappearing elsewhere. Nature must have put a stop to their 

 inordinate multiplication at the same period. It was fine warm autumn 

 weather, apparently favourable to them to the last moment.' " 



In order to give some idea of the vast hordes of Voles which 

 sometimes appear in certain districts, I may state that in 1882, 

 in the single district of Zabern, 1,570,000 field-mice were caught 

 in fourteen days ; in the district of Nidda, 590,427 ; and in that 

 of Putzbach, 271, 941. 



"In the autumn of 1856," says Lenz, "there were so many mice in 

 one district of about four leagues in circumference between Erfurt and 

 Gotha, about 12,000 acres of land had to be reploughed. The sowing 

 of each acre at current wages cost 6s., and the ploughing up was 

 estimated at Is. 6d. ; so that the loss amounted to from £"2000 to £4500, 

 and probably much more. On a single large estate near Breslau 200,000 

 were caught in seven weeks, and delivered to the Breslau manure-factory, 

 which then paid a pfennig (half-a-farthing) per dozen for them. Some of 

 the mouse-catchers were able to supply the factory with 1400 or 1500 per 

 day. In the summer of 1891, 409,523 voles and 4707 hamsters were 

 caught and counted in the district of Alsheim in Rhenish Hesse. The 

 local authorities paid 2523 gulden (about £104) for thern ! 



"In the years 1872 and 1873 it was just the same, and local com- 

 plaints arose in all parts of the country about the vole-plague. It might 

 be compared to one of the plagues of Egypt. Even in the day, on the 

 tandy plains of the Mark of Brandenburg, thousands of voles were counted 

 in particular fields, and in the rich corn-lands of Lower Saxony, Thuringia, 

 and Hesse, they abounded to a fearful extent. Half the harvest was 

 destroyed, hundreds of thousands of acres were left untilled, and thousands 



