THE WATER-RAT OR WATER-VOLE. 333 



be greatly valued. Up to the present we are 

 probably fully justified in regarding it as no more 

 carnivorous than is the beaver. 



WINTER HABITS. 



So far as one can judge, the storage habit is 

 less strongly developed in the water-vole than in 

 most of its congeners certainly less strongly than 

 in the gray rat. The musk-rat and the beaver 

 both have their stores, and it is probable that in 

 a country of long, severe winters the water-vole 

 would fall into line with the rest. 



Sometimes, but not always, the water-vole lays 

 up a plenteous winter store. ' Starprint,' whose 

 life-history I have written elsewhere, certainly laid 

 aside a small store for the first winter of his exist- 

 ence. It was situated in a short burrow in an 

 upturned root at least a dozen paces from the little 

 fellow's bank-burrow, and contained chiefly bulbous 

 roots retrieved from the perilous wood high above 

 his home. The store-room was at the end of a 

 short passage among the twisted roots of the fallen 

 tree, and when Starprint was flooded out of his 

 bank-burrow he made his home there. It seemed 

 a precarious winter home, since there was no back- 

 way of escape ; but ultimately it proved to be 

 an impregnable stronghold, the tough and twisted 

 roots that bound the earth defying the efforts of 

 Mr Reynard, who tried to dig Starprint out. 



His store, however, was entirely inadequate for 

 the rigorous winter that followed, and could, at 

 the best, have served only to tide him over a short 

 term of frost and snow. 



When winter comes, many of the water-voles 

 leave the river-banks for more sheltered quarters. 

 They are particularly fond of small ponds nestling 



