76 OBSERVATIONS ON QUADRUPEDS. 



it eat the blossoms of some species of ranunculus, 

 probably the R. repens, that was growing on the 

 bank. During these operations, it would occa- 

 sionally remain with the lower half of its body im- 

 mersed in the water, having merely its head and 

 anterior extremities on land ; at other times it left 

 the water altogether, and strolled about the bank, 

 grazing as it went. I noticed that it frequently 

 used its fore-feet as hands, after the manner of the 

 squirrel. 



We have an animal frequenting the fen-ditches of 

 Cambridgeshire, and not very unfrequent, which 

 the people sometimes call the water-mole. This is 

 nothing more than a black variety of the common 

 water-rat, the fur of which is sometimes of as deep 

 and velvety a hue as in the mole ; but every grada- 

 tion of tint may be found in different individuals 

 between this uniform rich black and the reddish- 

 brown which more ordinarily prevails. There is no 

 other difference whatever, besides colour, between 

 these two kinds of water-rats, though the black has 

 been considered by some as a distinct species.* 



On the 15th of June, 1830, I had a very large 

 female of the black sort brought to me, which had 

 been killed in the next village : it was gravid at 

 the time, and, on opening it, I found eight young 

 within, perfectly formed, and apparently quite ready 

 for exclusion, f 



* See Macgillivray in Wern. Mem. vol. vi. p. 429. 



t Mr. Jesse's sort of mole, which partook very much of the 

 appearance of a rat," is, no doubt, referable to this black variety 

 of the water-vole. See Gleanings, &c. (2nd Ser.) p. 27, 



