214 UPON A DAY 



But to return to the tent-dweller, who has suddenly 

 stopped as if frozen into stone. He is only looking at 

 a water-rat, but yet the common water-rat — or, more 

 /3Y . properly, the water-vole — regarded from what point 

 you please, is well worthy of study. It is one of 

 our most interesting English animals. It is not very 

 easy to point to any great structural differences between, 

 it and the rat. Those grinding teeth have no roots ; 

 and, for the rest, the distinctions are chiefly super- 

 ficial, and these you may notice for yourself. Its 

 head is broader and shorter than that of the rat ; its 

 ^^ , tail is shorter, blunt, and covered with hair. Its ears 



\ are also hairy, and not naked as the rat's. But it is 

 in habit that the great difference lies. The barn-rat 

 ^jP^'./.t can swim well, but he is a land-lubber in comparison 



-Aw-i f-' with his aquatic cousin. The barn-rat is omnivorous, 



as the housekeeper knows to her cost ; the water-rat 

 , is almost entirely a vegetable feeder. Not entirely, 

 for at certain seasons of the year he too acquires a 

 taste for meat ; but this is not his rule. Look at the 

 little creature. It is still, and almost of the same 

 colour as the alder stub on which it sits. It knows 

 this, and it is so still, not, you may be sure, because 

 it does not see the tent-dweller, but because it trusts 

 it is itself unseen. But the watcher stands there also 





/~^' 



