Professor Duns on the Habits of the Water Vole. 353 



found in the ossiferous cavern at Berry Head, Devon. Some 

 of the bones from the cavernous fissures at Oreston show 

 marks of nibbling, which may be referred more probably to 

 the incisors of a small rodent than to the canines of a weasel." 



Two specimens of the water vole have come into my 

 hands recently, in circumstances suggestive of peculiarities 

 of habit not hitherto noted. One of these is from Elie, 

 Fife ; the other from the garden of 14 Hope Terrace, White- 

 house, Edinburgh. The former was taken in a mole trap in 

 the grass plot of a garden not far from the sea ; the latter 

 was trapped in a run in all respects similar to that of the 

 mole, even to the throwing up of " hillocks " at short dis- 

 tances in the run. As the Elie specimen had nothing under 

 ground on which to feed, except the rootlets of the grass, 

 it must have been in the habit of leaving its run for the 

 purpose of feeding. Macgillivray says he had seen the black 

 variety feeding on grass {Mem. Wernerian Nat. Hist. Soc, vol. 

 vi., p. 428). The part of the garden frequented by the Hope 

 Terrace specimen was planted with beet {Beta vulgaris). 

 For some time before its capture, the gardener had noticed 

 that many of the roots of the beet were being destroyed by 

 some underground animal — the roots being gnawed or scooped 

 out in most cases about an inch below the surface of the soil. 

 The specimen was taken about the middle of October 1879. 

 That it had been feeding on the beetroot was abundantly 

 plain. An examination of the animal showed that the 

 digestive and other organs, and even the body wall touched 

 by them, were stained the bright red colour of beet juice. 

 This still continues quite apparent, after the lapse of more 

 than six months. 



It is worthy of notice, that the water nearest the garden is 

 the burn on the north side of Blackford Hill, Jordan Burn, 

 about a quarter of a mile distant. Between it and the 

 garden lie Blackford Road and Whitehouse Terrace, with 

 their own wall-fenced gardens, and, farther to the south, other 

 villas also bounded by high walls, especially on the north. 



The object I have chiefly in view in this notice, is to call 

 attention to the variety of the kinds of food taken readily by 

 this form, t-a its habit of burrowing in runs like the mole, and 



