FIELD VOLES IN THESSALY. 325 



factory, according to the experiments made on a small scale. 

 From the first I awaited the result with great anxiety. I had 

 not thought it very likely that the voles would eat the bread 

 when they were surrounded with the tenderest grasses. On this 

 account I expressed the opinion in the article already referred to 

 (' Centralblatt fur Bakteriologie und Parasitenkunde,' Band xi. 

 p. 129) that Spring and Autumn were the most favourable seasons 

 for attacking the voles by my method ; that is, at seasons when 

 their natural food was not over abundant. In Thessaly this 

 period was long past, and the finest and tenderest grass was 

 growing everywhere. The corn had already attained a height of 

 half a metre and upwards. I was therefore all the more agreeably 

 surprised when the news reached us that the bread had every- 

 where disappeared from the holes, even in the midst of the corn- 

 fields. We could not expect final results until the expiration of 

 at least four weeks, but after about nine days some of the con- 

 sequences became apparent. In company with Dr. Pampoukis, 

 who had been deputed hy the Government to assist us, and who 

 had made things smooth for us everywhere, and with the landed 

 proprietors who were most interested, we made a tour of in- 

 spection at the expiration of the time mentioned to the places 

 where we had ourselves applied the method, as well as to some 

 where the proprietors assured us it had been undoubtedly carried 

 out by the peasants. In Bakrena, where we had commenced the 

 trial nine days previously, the devastations in the fields had 

 ceased for two or three days. We were able to ascertain with 

 certainty that freshly-eaten corn was no longer found in the holes ; 

 what was actually found was at least two days old. Besides, we 

 saw no newly-opened mouse-holes. At several places all the 

 holes had, at my request, been trodden down the evening previous 

 to our visit. Not one of them had been reopened, as was other- 

 wise invariably the case under similar circumstances. Several 

 dead voles had been found by the peasants, but unfortunately 

 they had not been preserved. It was just the same at Nechali 

 and Amarlar. A number of the burrows were dug up ; many 

 were quite empty, and in others dead young were found, partly 

 eaten. At other places dead voles were found just outside the 

 burrows, or sticking in the holes ; we also found half- dead ones 

 moving about outside the holes in broad noonday, which they had 

 never been seen to do at other times. This discovery of dead 



