THE GUERNSEY VOLE. 



35 



Writing from the Natural History Museum, South Ken- 

 sington, under date of October 11th, 1909, Mr. Bunting 

 says : 



" My short stay in Guernsey gave me such little opportunity 

 to study the habits of its mammalia, that I fear any notes of 

 mine on the subject must be somewhat indefinite, especially 

 since my object was merely to procure specimens ; lack of 

 time compelling me to leave for local naturalists the interesting 

 advantage of working out their life-story. However, there are 

 some facts about Microtus sarnius which I can safely give. 



"Like the common Field Vole {Microtus agrestis) it is 

 gregarious, but unlike that animal, which lives in rough, un- 

 cultivated grass-land, the Guernsey Vole (or at least it was 

 so with all those which I took) inhabits the earth banks of 

 hedges dividing fields under cultivation, preferably those 

 which are not near a roadway or houses. Traps laid in likely 

 places, such as waste furze ground, amongst the cliffs, and 

 those set in open fields yielded nothing but the Common Rat ( Mus 

 decumanus) and the long-tailed Field Mouse (M. sylvaticus) ; 

 on this side of the Channel in such localities one might 

 reasonably expect to find Field Voles. The runs used by the 

 voles are well marked not only by the earth being well 

 trodden, but also by the over-arching of such grasses and plants 

 as grow in front of them. That the voles have themselves 

 made these runs seems probable, since they are often too 

 small to have been previously made by rats, and generally 

 too high in the hedge and too exposed to be old mole tracks. 

 They are also used by the Continental Shrew (Grocidura 

 russula) which seems very common in all the hedges. Such 

 vole holes as I examined penetrated a good way into the bank, 

 and became too complicated for me to examine further without 

 incurring the displeasure of the farmer who works the land. 



" Some of the female specimens taken at the latter end of 

 June contained well developed fceti, others were in a state 

 of lactation ; but breeding must commence earlier than that, 

 since immature specimens were procured at the same time ; 

 indeed it is probable that young are produced all through 

 the warmer months of the year, as some quite small ones 

 were sent me in August of last year. 



" I did not examine critically the contents of the stomach, 

 but my traps were baited with oatmeal, biscuit, breed, cheese 

 or bacon ; the last bait is the only one I cannot positively 

 remember to have been taken by the voles, which may prove 

 on closer observation not to be strict vegetarians. Traps 

 visited at dusk as well as in the early morning sometimes 

 contained voles, which consequently must be diurnal as well 

 as nocturnal in their habit of feeding. They were also taken 

 during heavy rain. 



