22 WATER-RAT. 



Eat, however, it has but little right, and ought 

 properly to be called the " Water-vole ". 



On examining the banks we shall find the entrance 

 to its domicile, being a hole in the earth, just above 

 the water, and generally, where possible, made just 

 under a root or a large stone. Sometimes the hole 

 is made at some height above the water, and then it 

 often happens that the kingfisher takes possession, 

 and there makes its home. Whether it ejects the 

 rat or not I cannot say, but I should think that it is 

 quite capable of doing so. Many a time I have seen 

 the entrance to a rat-hole decorated with a few stray 

 fish-bones, which the rustics told me were the relics 

 of fish brought there and eaten by the water-rat. 

 But I soon found out that fish-bones were a sign, 

 of kingfishers, and not of rats ; and so guided, 

 found plenty of the beautiful eggs of this beautiful 

 bird. Excepting the eggs of swallows and martins, 

 I hardly know any so delicately beautiful as those 

 of the kingfisher, with their slight rose tint and 

 semi-transparent shell. But, alas ! when the in- 

 terior of the egg is removed, the pearly pinkiness 

 vanishes, and the shell becomes of a pure white, 

 very pretty, but not containing a tithe of its former 

 beauty. 



The piscatorial propensities of the kingfisher are 

 not the only cause of the slanderous reports con- 

 cerning the water-vole, and its crime of killing and 

 eating fish. The common house-rat often frequents 



