MISCELLANEOUS NOTES 267 



PISCIVOROUS VOLES 



In August 1894 I went for a day's fishing on 

 Lound Run, a few miles from Yarmouth. Whilst 

 sitting in a boat I observed some small animal, and 

 subsequently another. I was not sure that it was 

 not a young Otter that had come up out of the water 

 at the margin of the opposite bank, dragging I 

 could not tell what with it, and disappearing in 

 the grass. For a time my curiosity abated, and I 

 thought no more of the matter, even after walking 

 later on to the spot and finding the broken valves of 

 the Swan Mussel lying about. 



Believing at that time the Water Vole (Microtus 

 amphibius) to be an entirely herbivorous animal, it 

 did not occur to me that this must have been the 

 little fellow at work. But a letter came to me on 

 llth April 1896 from the late Sir Edward Newton, 

 in which he wrote : 



" I see you mention in your paper that the Water 

 Vole is 6 exclusively herbivorous '; now on the llth 

 April 1884, when with Mr. Southwell on the 

 marshes near Ranworth, we observed on the banks 

 of the dykes quantities of the empty shells of the 

 large bivalve (Anadonta, I think it is) which had one 



