THE WATER-RAT OR WATER-VOLE. 331 



then nibbling the soft pith within. It eats also a 

 variety of water-plants, and tender shoots of almost 

 any kind. In autumn it eats practically any variety 

 of seeds that come handy, and in winter may gnaw 

 the bark of any species of hardwood, as rabbits do 

 gnawing generally at the roots just where they 

 enter the ground. Grass, daisy-roots, clover, bulbs 

 of all kinds, and beech-mast lying on the ground 

 appear to be appreciated items of diet ; while pota- 

 toes and sweet chestnuts are regarded as most 

 desirable dainties. 



I have never known this creature to eat carrion. 

 On one occasion we threw a dead hedgehog among 

 some driftwood about which water-voles were daily 

 seen, but there it remained, untouched by them, 

 till the next spate bore it away. On another 

 occasion a dead sheep, carried by the current, lodged 

 near a water-vole burrow, and a day or two later a 

 portion of the sheep protruding above the surface 

 was seen to be gnawed. Here, we felt sure, was 

 the expected evidence, but subsequent observations 

 proved beyond a shadow of doubt that the gnawing 

 was the work of a gray rat. The water-vole, 

 therefore, is of no value as a scavenger, and will 

 even ignore the water-logged stem of a cabbage 

 washed up near its home. 



Nor is this animal guilty of raiding the redds 

 of trout and salmon, as is so often thought. Such 

 depredations are limited to its interesting little 

 congener, the water-shrew. A river-keeper in the 

 north of England made a rule for many years of 

 trapping and destroying in every way possible the 

 water-voles that visited his trout-hatcheries ; but 

 subsequently he learnt that, though the voles did a 

 certain amount of damage by burrowing in the 

 banks of the ponds, and further by forcing creeps 



