THE CAMPAGNOL, OR SHORT-TAILED FIELD MOUSE. 459 
snub-nosed, short-eared, yellow-toothed Vole engaged in eating animal food, although the 
brown Rat may be often detected in such an act. 
Many communications have been made to me on the subject, written for the most part by 
persons who have seen water-side Rats engaged in catching and eating fish, and have thought 
that the delinquents were the true Water Vole. Indeed, the Vole is allied very closely to the 
beaver, and partakes of the vegetarian character of that animal. 
However guiltless the Water Vole may be of piscicapture, it is not altogether a harmless 
animal, for, independently of weakening the banks by its tunnels, it will sometimes leave the 
water-side and travel some little distance across the country in search of cultivated vegetables. 
One of these animals has been seen to cross a large field and enter a garden in which some French 
beans were growing. The Vole crept up the bean-stalks, and after cutting off several of the pods 
with its sharp and scissor-like teeth, picked them up and retraced its steps to its home. 
The color of the Water Vole is a chestnut-brown, dashed with gray on the upper parts 
and fading to gray below. The ears are so short that they are hardly perceptible above the 
fur. The incisor teeth are of a light yellow, and are very thick and strong. The tail is shorter 
than that of the common Rat, hardly exceeding half the length of the head and body. The 
average length of a full-grown Water Vole is thirteen inches, the tail being about four inches 
and three-quarters long. It is not so prolific an animal as the brown Rat, breeding only twice 
in the year, and producing from five to six young at a birth. 
THE CAMPAGNOL, or SHORT-TAILED FELD Mouss, is even more destructive in the open 
meadows than the common gray mouse in the barns or ricks; for not contenting itself with 
plundering the ripened crops of autumn, it burrows beneath the ground at sowing-time, and 
devours the seed-wheat which has just been laid in the earth. Besides these open-air depre- 
dations, it makes inroads into ricks and barns, and by dint of multitudinous numbers does very 
great harm. As its food is entirely of a vegetable nature, it does not enter human habitations, 
where it would find but a poor chance of a livelihood. 
The color of the Campagnol is ruddy brown on the upper surface of the body, and gray on 
the abdomen and chest. The ears are rounded and very small, closely resembling those of the 
water vole. The tail is only one-third the length of the body, and the total length of the animal 
is rather more than five inches. As it belongs to the same genus as the water vole, and is very 
closely related to that animal, it sometimes goes by the naine of Field Vole. 
It is a very prolific animal, and its numbers are almost incredibly great in districts where 
no means have been taken for its destruction. Even in well-cultivated fields, whether of grass 
or corn, the Campagnol may be found in vast quantities by any one whose eyes are sufficiently 
accustomed to the task to distinguish the little creature from the earth on which it moves, 
It creeps so easily through the green herbage that it scarcely stirs the blades ; and it is so 
similar in its color to the earth as it shows between the leaves, that none but a practised eye 
can detect them. There is hardly any sign to tell of its presence, except an undefined sense of 
something red among the grass, which, unless it be immediately pounced upon, fades again 
into brown, and the thing is gone. 
The Campagnol is a water-loving creature, and is oftener found in marshy ground than in 
meadows which are elevated above the level of the neighboring lands and ditches. A dry 
summer is very trying to these animals, and a long-continued drought is fatal to hundreds 
of them. 
The Field Vole carries its destructive powers even into woods and plantations, and is often 
the unknown cause by which some cherished -young tree has drooped, withered and died. 
These little animals are good burrowers, and are in the habit of digging into the ground, and 
nibbling the living roots of trees and shrubs. Sometimes the mice attack the bark, and by 
completely stripping it from the circumference of the tree, destroy it as effectually as if it had 
been cut down with an axe. 
THERE is another species of Field Mouse, in which the tail is much longer in proportion, 
and the dimensions are altogether smaller. This is the BANK VoLE, or BANK CAMPAGNOL, 
