62 ANIMAL ARTISANS 



which crawl up the trunks into the hollow crowns. 

 The present writer once saw a flooded-out rat sitting 

 on the top of a notice-board, the futility of which 

 in flood-time has often been subject for jokes, but 

 never more so than on that particular occasion, when 

 lengths of deep and muddy water between hedges 

 appeared labelled with the legend " Private Road," 

 and the most conspicuous objects showing above the 

 watery wastes on either side were the boards which 

 proclaimed them to be valuable building sites. 



The immolation of almost the entire insect 

 population, and of a very large number of the 

 mollusca and annelids, naturally follows the covering 

 of large areas of land with standing water. Among 

 the chief reasons why meadows which are annually 

 flooded for weeks are so unprofitable may be reckoned 

 the killing off of the whole living stock of earth- 

 worms. Doubtless their eggs remain in the ground 

 and renew the race ; but in such meadows earth- 

 worms are always few, which prevents the aeration 

 and movement of the soil. 



The after effects of floods, which are often so 

 injurious to human health that it is believed that 

 some of the greatest epidemics of the Middle Ages 

 originated in the flooding of the Yangtse Valley, 

 sometimes caused similar outbreaks among animals. 



Early in the last century the head-waters of the 

 great river Apure, a tributary of the Orinoco, burst 

 down in flood from the forest regions where the 

 waters generally lay in soak among the marshes, and 

 let loose the vegetable detritus which had been accu- 



