332 BIRDS, BEASTS, AND FISHES 



5. The Water- Vole. 



When the warm spring breezes ripple the glassy dikes 

 and wide lagoons, the beautiful chestnut-coated water-voles 

 leave their dark homes in the pretty dike-sides, and go in 

 search of food, for their winter store has got very low. 



You may see them eating the bark from the sallow bushes, 

 nibbling the chate and reed roots, feeding on young rushes, 

 or else biting into the fenman's turnips, an they should have 

 survived the winter snows and ices. In old reed-beds, too, 

 you will come across them feeding upon old reed, or else 

 you may see them carrying bits of these foods to their holes 

 just above high-water mark, the nibbled bits of green stuff 

 often betraying them. 



All day long, through spring, summer, and autumn, you 

 may in secluded dike-ways come upon them playing in 

 parties, or perched on the banks washing their faces, or 

 plunging into the stream and swimming hurriedly along 

 the shores to their holes — their hairy bodies and tails thread- 

 ing patterns over the dike-ways, w^here the succulent duck- 

 weed pies the water-ways with green leaflets. At times 

 you may get a good peep at them, for they are impudent 

 little fellows in spring, and will often sit peeping from their 

 holes with upraised heads ; or you may come across them 

 on the marshland, when they will squat and trust to your 

 overlooking them, instead of trusting to their heels. 



Should you dig a burrow out, you will find it goes straight 

 in for about a foot, then turns upwards towards the right 

 or left, the nest being a cavity large enough to hold a peck, 

 and securely placed beyond the reach of any floods. In this 

 hollow they make their nests in April, using warm dry grass 

 and chate. In these nests the young are born, but these I 

 have never seen ; though I knew an old fenman who told 

 me " he'd seen the old one carrying the young acrost a 

 deck like a dorg carry its young." 



