WILD CREATURES OF GARDEN AND HEDGEROW 



went on again, making altogether forty-two 

 journeys in which it hid one hundred and sixty- 

 two grains of barley ! 



This gives some idea of what the red bank 

 vole can do, for it is really a most mischievous 

 little creature, eating and spoiling great quan- 

 tities of stuff in our fields and gardens. It is 

 not at all particular what it eats ; it likes all 

 kinds of grain, including wheat, barley, oats, 

 peas and beans, fruit, such as apples, pears, 

 strawberries, gooseberries, and plums, nuts of 

 every sort, including walnuts and sweet chest- 

 nuts, acorns, berries like those of the wild 

 rose and hawthorn, and even green food, such 

 as lettuce leaves, the young blades of barley, 

 wheat, and oats, and dandelion, of which it is 

 very fond. To get the hips and haws in the 

 autumn it will climb up the bushes, running 

 out to the very tips of the branches to get the 

 berries, for it is quite at home up aloft and has 

 no fear of falling. Very often it carries the 

 fruit to some old bird's nest to eat, which is the 

 reason that in the autumn one so often sees 

 disused nests full of scarlet bits. These nests 

 serve as the dining tables for all the different 

 mice that like hips and haws. Sometimes in 

 the spring, when the bank vole climbs into 

 36 



