THE WATER-VOLES. 131 



first of all grounded on the fact that fish-bones were frequently 

 found along the banks of the streams he inhabited, and sometimes 

 about the entrance of, and even in, the hole which was his habitat 

 and home; and on this evidence alone the water-vole soon got 

 into very bad repute indeed. As to the finding occasionally of 

 fish bones along a water-vole inhabited stream, although the fact is 

 indisputable, it really goes for nothing, suspicious as it looks, 

 for similar relics of defunct trouts and troutlets may be seen any 

 day on the margin of streams where a water-vole was never yet 

 known to exist. The real culprits in such cases are the otter, 

 the common rat (a great fish-eater in shallow streams and almost 

 as expert a swimmer as the vole itself, only that it cannot dive so 

 well), the heron, king-fisher, and grey crow, all of whom are 

 fond of fish, either as an article of constant diet, or as an occasional 

 make-shift in default of more legitimate fare. As to the fish 

 bones to be sometimes met with in the water-vole's holes, the 

 dusky-coated and white-vested dipper and the beautiful plumaged 

 king-fisher are alone to blame. The castings, indeed, of a single 

 pair of king-fishers would of itself suffice to account for all the fish 

 bones one meets with by the banks of ponds and streams, for the 

 beautiful Alcedo is a voracious fish-devourer, and his hole going 

 backwards and upwards some three or four feet into the bank, 

 invariably a perfect charnel-house of bleached fish bones of 

 minnows and troutlets. The number of small fish that a pair 

 of king-fishers, with their young, dispose of in a single season must 

 amount to many thousands, and as the larger bones at least are 

 always cast or regurgitated, their presence may always be taken as 

 a sure indication that the spot has recently been the haunt of the 

 most beautifully coloured of British birds. When the bones of 

 larger fish, however, are met with, the blame, if blame there be, 

 must be shifted from the king-fisher to the shoulders of one or 

 other or all of the animals above mentioned. It is only fair that 



