THE WATER-BAT OR WATER-VOLE. 315 



the family splits up automatically into different 

 clans, each within hailing distance of the next, yet 

 each respecting the other's rights. 



GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. 



The water-voles are creatures of daylight habits, 

 lovers of the sunshine and of the bright scenes of 

 life. They are fond of crossing and recrossing the 

 water by which they live, and many times, from 

 high up in the hills, I have looked down into the 

 valley, where the river wound like a silver ribbon 

 across the green landscape, to see one of these little 

 creatures, visible from an immense distance, gamely 

 swimming across, the arrow-head of ripples clearly 

 marking its course. The buzzard, hanging in the 

 wind, evidently knows that it is of no use tilting 

 his planes and gliding down in hot pursuit, just as 

 the wolf knows that it is of no use trying to catch 

 a prairie-dog at the mouth of its funnel-shaped 

 burrow. 



Owing to its water habits, this species has 

 managed to survive many of its near kindred 

 which, though sharing its habitat and being more 

 productive, were exclusively creatures of the land. 

 The water-vole is essentially a beast of the water, 

 and though it does not possess fully developed 

 webbed feet, it is, at any rate, like the beaver, 

 clothed for a watery habitat. The young take 

 naturally to the water almost as soon as they are 

 born before, indeed, their eyes are open to the 

 light. This is evidently nature's safeguard against 

 the effect of floods, which are the chief among 

 the water-vole's foes. In hilly country the rivers 

 and burns are apt to rise with surprising sudden- 

 ness at any season of the year, flooding out the 

 bank-burrows ; and though, as a rule, the nursery- 



