THE PLAGUE OF FIELD VOLES IN SCOTLAND. 125 



Admitting the serious injury done to the pasture by voles, to 

 which the Committee can testify from personal inspection, it is 

 difficult to avoid the conclusion that the sheep dependent on that 

 pasture must have suffered to a considerable extent. To quote 

 Sir Walter Elliot's words : — 



" The importance of these early grasses to flocks emaciated by previous 

 scanty fare, at a time when the ewes, gravid with young, require more than 

 ordinary nourishment to enable them to rear their lambs, explains how 

 disastrous any diminution in their still scanty food might prove, whether 

 from severity of weather, or other unusual cause, such as the swarming of 

 the voles." 



But it is not easy to estimate the extent to which the death rate 

 of the ewes was increased, or the crop of lambs diminished as the 

 direct result of scarcity of pasture caused by the voles. 



All witnesses from the infested farms testified to the low 

 condition of the ewes at the time the Committee visited the 

 district, but they varied greatly in their estimate of the increased 

 death rate. One farmer, in the Hawick district, put the deaths 

 at six per cent, above an average, while the tenant of Middlegill, 

 and the shepherd of Medlock, both near Moffat, averred that it 

 had been doubled. The tenant of Ettrick Hall, in the Hawick 

 district, lost 140 ewes out of 1000, whereas the average death 

 rate for the last five years was 45. The tenant of Nether Cassock, 

 in Eskdalemuir, estimated the deterioration on 3000 sheep at 2s. 

 a head in 1891, and at 4s. a head in 1892, or £900 in two years. 



The crop of lambs appears to have seriously diminished in 

 consequence of the low condition of the ewes. The shepherd 

 of Rushiegreen, near Hawick, stated that 1400 or 1500 ewes 

 produced 344 lambs fewer than the average. The tenant of 

 Ettrick Hall and Nether Hall, in Selkirkshire, had only 333 

 lambs, whereas an average would be from 600 to 700. In Dum- 

 friesshire, the tenant of Barr, near Sanquhar, said he had only 60 

 lambs per 100 ewes, the average being 90. The deficiency was 

 variously calculated at from 15 to 50 per cent, below the average. 



In addition to the direct loss suffered by death among the 

 ewes and failure in the lamb crop, there must be reckoned the 

 extra expense incurred in hand-feeding as a substitute for natural 

 pasture. The tenant of Eilrig (1100 acres, present rent £255 

 10s.) put down the extra cost of this during the winter and spring 

 1891-92 at £120. The tenant of Howpasley (3000 acres), in 



