232 
Vermin of the Farm. 
barns and are making terrible havoc amongst the unthreshed 
corn.” There are also records of extensive mischief perpetrated 
by these small mammals in Germany and Italy. In the latter 
country they undermined embankments, gnawed off the shoots 
of vines, and did permanent injury in gardens. 
For purposes of suppression similar methods to those that 
have been employed in the Forest of Dean and the New Forest 
in this country have been resorted to in Continental districts. 
Thus, in this Journal (Vol. X., S.S., 1874, p. 317), Professor 
Wrightson states : — 
“Throughout Germany, Austria, and Hungary the agriculturist is plagued 
by the depredations of field-mice. These creatures multiply with great 
rapidity, and in dry seasons literally swarm over the country, destroying 
the crops over vast areas of land. No one seems able to suggest a cure, for 
the mice are about as difficult to reduce to reasonable limits as any of those 
insect plagues which from time to time attack our cornfields. I first noticed the 
depredations of mice at Talos, on Count Esterhazy’s estate, whence both wheat 
and lucerne were injured by them. The ground truly seemed alive with them, 
and they might be seen darting to and fro by anyone who would walk a few 
steps into the standing corn. The country from Kanisa to Fiinfkirchen and 
Villany was almost devastated from this cause, the wheat crops being beaten 
down, and often reduced to a few scattered straws standing up amid the 
wreck of a fine wheat crop. M. Elvers cut trenches 10 inches deep and 
7 inches to 8 inches wide entirely around his cornfields to, if possible, keep 
out the mice. At intervals pots were sunk, so as to form a succession of 
pitfalls at the bottom of this trench and were filled with w'ater. The mice, on 
falling into this trench, ran along the bottom aud fell into these traps in 
large numbers. ” 
The ravages of voles in tke Border Counties of Scotland are 
attended with consequences of the most serious character to the 
hill sheep farmers. The herbage of these northern hills is, at 
best, only of poor quality, but it is the most nutritious that the 
mountain slopes can produce, and, though it would be despised 
by a lowland farmer, its value in the restricted localities in 
which it grows has been demonstrated over and over again. 
Heather, ling, moss, deer’s hair, and spret are amongst the 
plants which thus serve as forage in these remote districts. 
Heather, or he-heather, is Galluna vulgaris, Salisb., known to 
botanists as ling, and hill sheep eat its young shoots readily. 
They do not, however, care for the she-heather, Erica cinerea, 
L., and the bell-heather. Erica Tetralix, L. Ling is, strangely 
enough, the name given to the hare’s-tail cotton grass, 
Eriophwum vaginatum, L., a member of the sedge family. It 
is one of the earliest and best relished plants of the hills, being 
eaten by the sheep with great avidity, especially the roots ; the 
first shoots and the flower stalks are generally known as moss. 
Deer’s-bair is a species of club-rush, Scir^tcs, Stool-bent, or 
