336 WILD LIFE ON A NORFOLK ESTUARY 



" They were placed near the ' work ' of water-voles : I took 

 one claw from a hole. Around each heap lay the dung 

 of voles. I have always thought the vole herbivorous, but I 

 am inclined to believe it occasionally varies its diet with 

 animal food, like the squirrel. 



" The only ' others ' I can think of being the culprits are 

 the common rat, the otter, and possibly the weasel. 



" Mr. F. Norgate tells me he has frequently observed the 

 remains of frogs in small heaps [I have toads chiefly], 

 which he thinks the work of the water-vole. . . . 



" R. J. W. P." 



Without a shadow of a doubt these crayfish had been 

 fished up by the vole and operated upon, as I have observed 

 them bring to the surface the swan-mussel and devour it ; 

 and although I never yet actually detected the vole making 

 free with toads, I have seen that unhappy reptile minus toes 

 in a position that clearly indicated an unexpected escape 

 from the omnivorous rodent. 



I have been assured by an old eel-babber, a man whose 

 word I have always been able to believe, that he had on 

 several occasions seen water-voles run off with the skins and 

 heads of red herrings thrown on to the bank after a meal in 

 his houseboat ; this was generally observed in very severe 

 weather, " when the poor things were hard set for a bit of 

 grub." He had a small " hand-gun" in his houseboat on one 

 occasion. This he loaded one afternoon and fired at a vole, 

 knocking it over with a herring's head still held between its 

 teeth. He " skun " the animal and made a tobacco-pouch of 

 the pelt, which he carried about with him for several years. 



A friend of mine, a capable observer, informs me that he 

 is quite familiar with instances in which the water-vole has 

 devoured the common frog. 



MORE BLACK RAT NOTES 



In the January Zoologist (1906) a friend of mine, who has 

 keenly followed up the vagaries of Mus rattus and its allies 

 in the neighbourhood, wrote to the effect that : 



" The two local races of the black rat (Mus rattus rattus 

 and M. r. alexandrinus] appear to be increasing in numbers, 

 several fresh haunts having been brought to my notice. 



