326 THE WATER-RAT OR WATER-VOLE. 



had many runways and landing -platforms, and 

 from the general aspect of things he did himself 

 very well. Certainly he had annexed the most 

 sunny and sheltered corner obtainable along the 

 whole river-stretch. 



SIGNALLING. 



So far as is apparently known, water-voles have 

 not advanced to the level of the beavers in the 

 employment of any recognised system of inter- 

 communication. A beaver in search of a wife 

 forthwith advertises the fact by planting notice- 

 boards (otherwise castor signs) all up and down 

 the landscape, particularly at the river-forks, where 

 the advertisement is likely to catch the eye of 

 passing pedestrians of his own species, though not 

 of his own sex. If the water-voles possess any 

 such system, they have managed to keep it secret, 

 and in all probability their sense of smell is their 

 only aid to matrimony. 



These animals, however, adopt the same system 

 as the beavers of spreading the alarm by diving 

 noisily when danger threatens. They do not, appa- 

 rently, strike the water with their tails as the beavers 

 do, but dive with such suddenness that the water 

 closes behind them with an abrupt 'plop,' which 

 can be heard at a considerable distance. This 

 action is instantly copied by other voles, startled 

 by the noise, and so the alarm is spread up and 

 down the river-bank ahead of the approaching 

 danger. When diving ordinarily, water-voles do 

 so in perfect silence ; it is only when they are 

 alarmed that the suddenness of their immersion 

 automatically creates the alarm-signal. So far as 

 can be ascertained, this marks the limit of the 

 water-vole's attainments in the way of intercom- 



