THE WATER-RAT OR WATER-VOLE. 319 



Next to the owl, large trout and pike probably 

 rank as chief among this little creature's blood 

 enemies. A seventeen-pound pike caught in the 

 river Ken, in Kirkcudbrightshire, within a mile of 

 Loch Ken, contained a whole family of half-grown 

 water-voles, together with a full-grown wild duck ! 

 It almost reminds one of Harry Tate's pike, which 

 enclosed a motor-cycle, a sewing-machine, and part 

 of a tree, and I would put it down as belonging 

 to the same category of pike story if I had not been 

 personally active in the downfall of this particular 

 fresh-water shark. Large trout, similarly, will take 

 anything moving that they consider there is the 

 least chance of their swallowing ; but since they 

 are less numerous than pike, and are probably 

 less given to hunting along the margins, they 

 figure less prominently among the water-vole's 

 foes. 



Salmon, on their up-stream journey, do not 

 interfere very much with the regular residents of 

 the stream ; but in winter, when on the redds, 

 they become ugly in character as well as in looks, 

 and doubtless many a vole, crossing the sheet of 

 water which he considers his, and which the salmon 

 consider theirs, is savagely dragged down by them 

 to be torn to ribbons in the gloomy depths. 



Otters, herons, and salmon, then, are added in 

 winter to the list of the water-vole's standing foes. 

 During that season frost and flood-waters, hunger 

 and privation, beset the little creatures' lives, so 

 that wise and cautious is the vole that lives to 

 breed its kind. In summer the water-voles flourish 

 and multiply ; in winter their numbers are reduced 

 to the minimum which suffices to produce next 

 year's normal stock. Thus, while autumn may 

 see the water-vole population of a given stretch 



