422 



THE NATURE BOOK 



\fATER RAT SLIPPING INTO THE WATER 



improvident anglers have deposited on 

 the bank. Both happenings are Hkely 

 enough. A \Vater Rat can be easily 

 trapped in an unconcealed gin baited with 

 nothing — it would hardly be reasonable to 

 conclude from this that he lived on air 

 — and dead animal matter, especially if 

 blood-tainted, will attract any of the 

 Muridae. 



It does not follow that the Muridae 



and I am in- 

 clined to think 

 that they are 

 kept in the 

 nursery until 

 they are fairly 

 grown. They 

 take to swim- 

 ming like young 

 ducks. 



Besides being 

 an easy prey 

 for carni\'orous 

 animals, such 

 as the stoat, 

 weasel and 

 otter, and car- 

 nivorous birds, 

 such as the heron and the owl, Water 

 Rats must continually beware of carniv- 

 orous fish. Trout, pike and eels probably 

 thin their numbers considerably, and 

 there are several records of these voracious 

 beasts being choked in their attempts to 

 gulp too stout a specimen. 



The nest of a Water Rat is generally 

 difficult to discover, though instances of 

 its building in reed-beds are not very 



are, as a class, capable of preying on active infrequent. The breeding-nest is more 



vertebrates. So far as slow moving 

 invertebrates are concerned, I imagine 

 that the \\^ater Rat will joyfully consume 

 any that he can catch — water-snails, for 

 example, bivah"es. larvae of aquatic 

 insects and small crustaceans. To this 

 extent he may be con- 

 s i d e r e d carnivorous. 

 Two competent natural- 

 ists, Messrs. Patterson 

 and Latter, suspect him 

 of eating cray-fish. The 

 habits of this crusta- 

 cean might easily lead 

 him to lie up in the 

 subaquatic entrance to 

 a Water Rat's burrow, 

 in which case he prob- 

 ably would be eaten. 



An amphibious exist- 

 ence ensures two 

 avenues of escape, but, 

 at the same time, 

 provides two sets of 

 enemies. One seldom 

 encounters immature 

 Water Rats at large, 



usually situated at the end of a long 

 tortuous burrow, with at least one sub- 

 aquatic entrance, and several above the 

 water level. It is of the usual type — 

 a mass of bitten grass and reed-stems, 

 with a rough-wound outer casing. The 



A COMBAT BETWEEN WATER RATS. 



