Table 2. Relationship Between Home Range Size and Length of Time on the Study Area
| No. months on area | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
| Mean range in acres | .09 | .09 | .10 | .14 | .13 | .17 | .22 | .22 | .26 | .24 |
Nothing concerning the home range of Microtus ochrogaster was found in the literature. Several workers, including Blair (1940) and Hamilton (1937c), have studied the home range of M. pennsylvanicus. Blair (1940:153) reported a larger range for males than for females in all habitats and in all seasons represented in his sample. In M. ochrogaster, however, I found that the mean monthly range for both sexes was 0.09 of an acre. Blair (loc. cit.) reported no individuals with a range so small as that mean, but Hamilton (op. cit.:261) mentioned two voles with ranges of less than 1200 square feet. The mean total range used by an individual during the entire time it was being trapped showed a slight difference between the sexes. Males used an average of 0.14 of an acre whereas females used an average of but 0.12 of an acre. This suggested that, as in M. pennsylvanicus (Hamilton, loc. cit.), males tended to wander more than females and to shift their home range more often.
The largest monthly range recorded was 0.28 of an acre used by a female in March, 1951, and calculated on the basis of four captures. The largest monthly range of a male was 0.25 of an acre for a vole caught eight times in November, 1950. The smallest monthly range was 0.02 of an acre; several individuals of both sexes were restricted to areas of this size. Juveniles, not included in the home range study, were usually restricted to 0.01 or, at most, 0.02 of an acre. Seasonal differences in the sizes of home ranges were not significant. However, the voles caught in the winter often enough to be used for home range studies were too few for a thorough study of seasonal variation in the size of home ranges.
One female was captured 22 times in the seven-month period of October, 1950, to April, 1951. She used an area of 0.83 of an acre, but this actually comprised two separate ranges. From October, 1950, through December, 1950, she was taken 17 times within an area of 0.12 of an acre; and from January, 1951, to April, 1951, she was taken five times within an area of 0.15 of an acre. The largest area assumed to represent one range of a female was 0.38 of an acre, recorded on the basis of six captures in three months. The largest area encompassed by the record of an individual male was 0.41 of an acre. He, too, shifted his range, being taken five times on an area of 0.07 of an acre and twice, two months later, on an area of 0.09 of an acre. Presumably, the remainder of his calculated total range was used but little, or not at all. The largest single range of a male was 0.36 of an acre, calculated on the basis of 18 captures in seven months. The smallest total range for both sexes was 0.02 of an acre.
Many voles shifted their home range and a few did so abruptly. The large range of a female vole, described above and plotted in [Fig. 6], indicated an abrupt shift from one home range to another. More common is a gradual shift as indicated by the range of the male shown in [Fig. 7]. Large parts of each monthly range of this vole overlapped the area used in other months but his center of activity shifted from month to month.
Fig. 6. Map with cross-hatched areas showing the range of vole #20 (female). Dots show actual points of capture at permanent trap stations 30 feet apart. Vertical lines mark area in which vole was taken 17 times in October and November, 1950. Horizontal lines mark area in which vole was taken five times in March and April, 1951. This vole was not captured in December and January.