THE PLAGUE OF FIELD VOLES IN SCOTLAND. 135 



or agricultural society, the first signs of the multiplication of 

 vermin, so that palliative measures may at once be adopted, not 

 on isolated farms, but everywhere throughout the district. 



The most effective measures appear to be periodical and 

 timely burning of grass and heather, followed by active pursuit 

 of the vermin by men using wooden spades and dogs. If this 

 were promptly done in the earlier stages of the outbreak, it is 

 quite possible that it might be averted altogether, or greatly 

 mitigated in severity. 



It is hardly necessary to point out that the proprietor of the 

 land should be informed as soon as anyone else, because his 

 keepers and others might be usefully employed in assisting to 

 prevent what amounts, if unchecked, to a common calamity 

 upon all classes connected with land. 



Where plantations of limited extent are attacked, pitfalls 

 wider at the bottom than at the top, and about eighteen inches 

 deep, should be dug. The voles fall into them and cannot 

 escape, and the ground is soon cleared of them in this way. 



The Committee cannot speak with approval of the use of 

 poisoned grain, except where the area affected is very limited. 



Nor have thay been able to come to any conclusion favourable 

 to the adoption of Professor Loeffler's method of destroying voles 

 by means of bread saturated in a preparation of the bacillus typhi 

 murium, or mouse typhus. The personal investigations made by 

 the Chairman and Secretary in Thessaly (where in May, 1892, 

 Prof. Loeffler was employed at the expense of the Greek Govern- 

 ment to combat the plague of Field Voles then prevailing in that 

 country) convinced them that the favourable reports circulated 

 as to the complete success of the experiments have not been 

 justified by the results. In certain parts of Thessaly the voles 

 were reported by landowners and others to be as numerous in 

 January, 1893, as ever they were. 



The Committee readily admit that when used in a fresh state 

 the bacilliferous fluid is an effective though somewhat dilatory 

 poison for mice or voles, and has this advantage over mineral 

 poisons, that, as has been proved, it is innocuous to human and 

 other forms of life. 



It has been reported by Prof. Loeffler that the Scottish voles 

 sent to him alive by instructions from the Committee have been 

 found as susceptible of the mouse typhus-bacillus as their Greek 



