FIN AND FUR ON SURREY HILLS. 81 



sible for the pike and perch of the river Mole. I 

 have tried all the various baits there, but the very 

 best were the fine stone loaches from these rills. 

 Miller's - thumbs, bullheads, or bull - trouts, were 

 plentiful ; with them we did not interfere, although, 

 like the loach, they are excellent eating. If you 

 make a skeleton of the miller's -thumb, the head 

 looks curiously monkey-like. 



Water-shrews had their home here. I have spent 

 hours in watching the habits of these little creatures. 

 Where the rills widened out into ditches the water- 

 rats, or water-voles, had their holes. Two varieties 

 I knew there the common brown vole and the 

 black water-vole. The latter is smaller than his 

 more common relative, and, when he is sitting on 

 the bank, looks like a small ball of dark velvet. 

 I saw one lately on the banks of the same small 

 ditch. 



I have seen the pike, too, swim up that brook 

 in the way that the late Richard Jefferies observed 

 them in his own county. As a fellow field-naturalist, 

 I would pay my tribute of praise, and express my 

 perfect appreciation of the work of one of the most 

 minute and truthful observers that England has 

 F 



