lo FARM VERMIN, HELPFUL AND HURTFUL, 



whereby mouse-hunting hawks, owls, and weasels had been 

 almost exterminated. That view cannot be maintained when 

 the state of matters in other countries is taken into account. 

 In Thessaly and the South American prairies nobody thinks 

 of shooting hawks and owls, which exist there in un- 

 molested numbers ; yet these lands are just as subject to 

 periodical swarms of voles and mice as our own. Moreover, 

 it has been shown that in former centuries, long before 

 gamekeepers had interfered with the natural enemies of the 

 mice, Great Britain was subject to visitations not less severe 

 than that which has lately caused such grievous damage in 

 Scotland. The only precaution possible is watchfulness, and 

 combined action on the part of landowners, farmers, 

 shepherds, and other persons on the land, so soon as the first 

 ■symptoms of undue increase in the vermin are detected. 



One favourable result of the recent plague — the only one, 

 unless it be that kestrels and owls be henceforth encouraged 

 to stay in our land — remains to be noticed. The grass 

 w^hich has sprung up on the affected land after the departure 

 of the voles is of superior quality, and the pasture has been 

 much improved in quality. But it is an expensive remedy ; 

 farmers would rightly prefer to keep the management of 

 their grass lands in their own discretion rather than trust to 

 the empyrics of nature, and no vigilance should be relaxed 

 to avert the recurrence of such a visitation. 



