THE WATER-RAT OR WATER-VOLE. 323 



burrows are often very extensive, representing, 

 as they do, the activities of family after family 

 of youngsters who have worked off superfluous 

 energy by enlarging their quarters, while at the 

 same time procuring a good deal of food by pros- 

 pecting among the roots. 



DIGGING-POWERS. 



Like the mole and the badger, water-voles are 

 expert diggers. They will even construct under- 

 ground subways rather than risk exposing them- 

 selves in the open. One of these tunnels may run 

 for a considerable distance from the water's edge up 

 into a wood, for example, or even to a river-side 

 garden ; and, like the mouse-creeps in the grass, it 

 is tapped by intercommunicating subways till a 

 veritable maze is formed. What the beaver canals 

 are to the beavers, these subways are to the water- 

 voles. They exist purely for the transportation of 

 food, and their chief value is that, the animals being 

 of daylight habits, they can venture far afield 

 without exposing themselves to the attacks of 

 birds of prey, foxes, &c. 



As a rule, the subways are not connected 

 up with the bank-burrows, for if this were so 

 they would prove a source of danger by bringing 

 weasels and the like to the very threshold of the 

 little engineers. Generally the subway entrance 

 is several yards from the home burrow, though 

 sufficient cover lies between the two to enable 

 the rodents to pass from one to the other without 

 being seen. 



The tunnels are very similar to those constructed 

 by moles, even to the casting up of mounds of earth 

 which mark their course. In fact, I have known 

 an experienced mole-catcher to make the error of 



