126 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



Roxburghshire, calculated his extra expenditure at £144 ; the 

 tenant of Ettrick Hall and Nether Hall (2400 acres), in Selkirk- 

 shire, reckoned that he had spent £100 since January, 1892; 

 while the tenant of Nether Cassock and Glenderg, in Eskdalemuir 

 (6500 acres), estimated the cost of hay and corn supplied during 

 two seasons at £1200. The tenant of Kinnelhead, near Moffat, 

 claimed to have lost £1013 in two years by deaths and cost of 

 hand-feeding. It appears that hand-feeding is never resorted to, 

 unless in exceptional circumstances, such as a prolonged snow- 

 storm, or a failure of pasture such as has been caused by the 

 voles. 



Of course, in weighing evidence as to losses by death of ewes 

 and deficiency of lambs, it is necessary to take into account the 

 character of the season. The general testimony throughout the 

 several counties was to the effect that, but for the voles, the 

 lambing season would have been a favourable one, both among 

 Cheviot and black-faced stock. Only two witnesses held a con- 

 trary opinion, one an assistant in a land agent's office, the other 

 the tenant of a farm in the Leadhills district. 



In order to elicit more general opinion on this subject, the 

 Committee caused a schedule of questions to be circulated among 

 hill-farmers in districts not affected by voles. Nineteen of these 

 were filled up and returned with the following result as to 

 the character of the lambing season: — Very good, 2; good, 6; 

 average, 7 ; bad, 4. 



On the whole, therefore, it may be assumed that the lambing 

 season of 1892 in the south of Scotland was fully of an average 

 character, and the extraordinary death rate among ewes and 

 deterioration in the number and quality of lambs is to be 

 attributed to the scarcity of grass caused by the ravages of 

 the voles. 



Remedies. — No concerted or systematic attempt to stamp out 

 the plague in its earlier stages seems to have been undertaken by 

 the farmers of the district affected, and this is the more remarkable 

 because some of them, at all events, had the bitter experience of 

 the outbreak of 1875-70 to warn them of the serious results of 

 allowing the voles to get ahead. Isolated efforts were made by 

 some tenants to rid their land of voles by burning the grass and 

 heather, by killing them with men and dogs, by turning out cats, 

 and by poison ; but the effect of such piecemeal endeavours seems 



