tore out all exposed nests. Nests above ground are common even when there is
not a Vole plague.
I have had the Field Vole in confinement, but cannot state definitely the
period of gestation. The young are very clumsy and slow in their movements
until the age of three weeks, and I do not think that they go abroad and forage
for themselves until they are five weeks old.
In ancient times the agriculturists of Southern Europe had many difficulties
to contend with, and not the least of them was the constantly recurring plague of
Field Voles. The classics are full of references to destruction caused by ‘ field
mice,’ and offer suggestions to abate the nuisance. For instance, there is Aristotle’s
account,1 written more than 2,000 years ago :
‘ There is a doubt respecting the reproduction and destruction of the Mice
which live on the ground; for such an inexpressible number of Field Mice have
sometimes made their appearance that very little food remained. Their power of
destruction also is so great that some small farmers, having on one day observed
that their corn was ready for harvest, when they went the following day to cut
their corn found it all eaten. The manner of their disappearance also is unaccountable
; for in a few days they all vanish, although beforehand they could not
be exterminated by smoking and digging them out, nor by hunting them and
turning swine among them to root up their runs. Foxes also hunt them out, and
wild weasels are very ready to destroy them; but they cannot prevail over their
numbers and the rapidity of their increase, nor indeed can anything prevail over
them but rain, and when this comes they disappear very soon.’
The accuracy of Aristotle’s statement is, curiously enough, confirmed by the
official reports of the Greek Government on the Thessalian Vole plague, as
quoted by Professor Loeffler: ‘ One evening a field was visited which was to be
mowed the following day, but when the labourers came to the field next morning
they found nothing left to reap. The Voles had destroyed the entire crop in a
single night.’
1 Bohn’s ed. and translation (p. 178) of the H istoria AnimaKum, lib. vi. cap. 37. Many other references to the
damage caused by Field Mice are supplied by Mr. Harting, notably, Diodorus, lib. iii. cap. 30 ; .«Elian, D eN atura Animalium,
lib. ix. cap. 41 and lib. xvii. cap. 4 1 ; Rutilius, Itin . v. 285; .«Eschylus; Geoponicorum sive de re rusiica, lib. xiii. cap. 5 ;
not forgetting Theophrastus, and the more familiar Pliny. ./Elian relates how a visitation and plague of Field Mice drove
certain peoples in Italy out from their native land, and made them wanderers on the face of the earth, destroying not only
the leaves of the plants as a drought would, or extreme frost, or other inclemency of the season, but eating up the very
roots. Rutilius also relates (/.<r.) how a similar experience befell the people of Cosa. Then there is the account given by
Herodotus {Euterpe, ii. 141) of the defeat of the army o f Sennacherib in consequence of the destruction by Field Mice, during
the night, of their quivers, arrows, and bowstrings, which were rendered useless by gnawing.
Greek scholars are familiar with the worship of Apollo Smintheus,1 or Apollo
the Mouse-god, as he is sometimes called. Apollo was regarded as the author
and averter of the various plagues of field mice from which Greece suffered, and
we can still understand the reverence in which his powers were held.
Sir Walter Elliott mentions various early references, the earliest being found
in 1 Sam. v. 6, when the Philistines, having carried off the Ark of the Covenant,
were stricken with disease, and their fields overrun with swarms of mice. England,
Scotland, France, Germany, Hungary, Thessaly, Asia Minor, and L a Plata have
all suffered from Vole plagues in their turn.
The origin of the various and frequent plagues of Field Voles has never yet
been properly explained. For several years these small rodents seem to exist in
their usual numbers, and then one season they suddenly come upon the earth as
if ‘ by magic,’ says Blasius, in their tens of thousands. A mild winter and an
unusual abundance of good grass may perhaps account for it, and then the
unfortunate farmers in some district are exposed to all the inconveniences and
loss that are entailed by a ‘ Vole-year.’
‘ Under favourable circumstances,’ says Blasius, ‘ the ,'Field Vole multiplies in
an incredible manner. Many instances are known in which a great part of the
harvest has been destroyed over large tracts of country by their inordinate increase,
and more than a thousand acres of young birch trees have been destroyed by their
gnawing the bark. Those who have never experienced such a Vole-year can hardly
form a conception of the almost incredible swarms of Voles in the fields and
plantations.’
Brehm thus describes the Vole plagues that visited the Lower Rhine at the
beginning of the nineteenth century : ‘ The fields were so undermined in places
that you could scarcely set foot on the ground without touching a Vole-hole, and
innumerable paths were deeply trodden between these openings. On fine days it
swarmed with Voles; which ran about openly and fearlessly. I f they were
approached, from six to ten rushed to the same hole to creep in, and unwillingly
impeded one another’s progress by crowding together. It was not difficult in the
1 2/uv0cus is derived from %/juvOti, a town in Troas, according to Aristarchus; but Apion says it comes from tr/uvOos, a
mouse; hence o-fuvdtus, the mouse-killer. ‘ P.,’ writing in the Stony hurst Magazine, December 1892, and referring to the worship
of the Mouse-god, says: - Finally there is another aspect in which we may regard the mouse, and one in which it is even
more closely connected with the religious ideas o f the ancients, namely, as a harbinger of good or evil tidings from the gods;
that is to say, the announcer of their satisfaction or displeasure. The mouse in fact seems to have been a creature of omen
from the earliest times, though there appears to have been some scepticism about the matter, as may be seen from the
anecdote related by St. Augustine. A person had his boots gnawed by mice, and asked Cato how the portent should be
explained. Cato replied that it would have been more of a portent if the boots had gnawed the mice.’
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