AN INNOCENT VICTIM. 23 



the water-side ; and, it being a great flesh-eater, 

 - certainly does catch and eat the fish. 



But the water-rat is a vegetable feeder, and I be- 

 lieve almost, if not entirely, a vegetarian in diet. 

 That it is so in individual cases, at all events, I can 

 personally testify, having seen the creature engaged 

 in eating. 



In former days, when I thought the water-rats ate 

 fish, I waged war against them, for which warfare 

 there are great facilities at Oxford. However, a 

 circumstance occurred which showed me that I had 

 been wrong. 



I saw a water-rat sitting on a kind of raft that 

 had formed from a bundle of reeds which had been 

 cut and were floating down the river. Seeing it 

 busily at work feeding, I took it for granted that it 

 was eating a captured fish, and shot it accordingly, 

 stretching it dead on its reed raft. 



On rowing up to the spot, I was rather surprised 

 to find that there was no fish there ; and on examining 

 the reeds, I rather wondered at the regular grooves 

 cut by my shot. But a closer inspection revealed a 

 very different state of things ; namely, that the poor 

 dead rat was quite innocent of fish eating, and had 

 been gnawing the green bark from the reeds, the 

 grooves being the marks left by its teeth. After this 

 I gave up rat shooting on principle. 



Once, though, a rather curious circumstance oc- 

 curred. 



