246 THE NATURAL HISTORY 



family, after which she neatly turned a kind of loose 

 arch immediately under the opening in the roof of her 

 nursery, through which the interior would otherwise 

 have been visible from above. 



The Water Vole (Arvicola amphibius), commonly 

 called the Water Rat, is found on the banks of our 

 streams and ponds ; and it has the credit of being a 

 much more harmless creature than the common brown 

 rat. We had, until very recently, been under the im- 

 pression that it subsisted exclusively on vegetable diet, 

 chiefly aquatic plants and roots; and that, with the ex- 

 ception of its censurable habit of burrowing in the banks 

 of the ponds, and a few unimportant pilferings at no 

 great distance from its habitation, very little mischief 

 could be justly laid to its charge. We have now, how- 

 ever, been assured by competent observers that water 

 voles have frequently been seen to pursue and attack 

 very young ducklings in the South Garden ponds, on 

 the banks of which several of the aggressors have been 

 shot. On one occasion an unusual commotion was 

 noticed among a brood of the Decoy duck on one of 

 these ponds, and the parent bird was seen to rise up 

 in the air repeatedly with loud angry quackings, and 

 pounce down on the water at some object that was 

 only partially visible to the observers. This continued 

 for several minutes, after which the excitement seemed 

 gradually to subside, and the duck appeared to be 

 engaged for some time longer in violently striking with 

 its bill and shaking some dark-looking struggling mass 

 under the surface ; it then quietly rejoined its young 

 family, which by this time had found shelter among 

 the flags. The sequel may be anticipated, it was a 

 water vole, about three-parts grown, and not a brown 

 rat, that was left floating in a disabled state on the 

 water where the conflict had taken place, and a 

 retriever, belonging to one of the persons who had 

 witnessed the extraordinary scene, plunged in and at 

 once brought it to land, when it was identified beyond 



