SMALL DEER OUR RODENTS 143 
they have picked up all they can find on dry land. 
The acorns all fall on the edges of the pool, so that 
the ducks can easily get them without too much 
exertion on their part ; the thicker ends stick straight 
up in the soft leaf-ooze. 
But when the acorns fall, and a breeze curls the 
surface of the pool, our little swimmer and diver, 
the water-vole, keeps inshore ; for at that time a 
strip from a white pocket handkerchief on a pike 
trace will land one or two fish. Not many yards 
would our vole go before there would be a vicious 
snap from below, and he would be dead and crushed 
as flat as a pancake in less time than it takes 
to write about it. In fact, my pretty, harmless 
friend has many enemies both above and below. 
The heron is one of these ; he lets drive at him 
on the back of the head with that bayonet-like 
bill of his, and then swallows him whole. Stoats, 
weasels, and the now rare polecat, all interview him 
when they get the chance, not to speak of the pike 
and the otter. I have good reasons for believing that 
the water-vole forms part of the otter's prey at times, 
just as the kestrel or windfanner a true falcon is 
chased, killed and eaten by the peregrine, one of the 
falcon princes ; which proves that the old saying that 
' hawks do not pick out other hawks' eyes ' will not 
