130 NETHER LOCHABER. 



appeared as if adorned with numberless tiny pearls — air bubbles, in 

 fact — that adhered to their fur, and that, frequently shifting the 

 position like quicksilver drops, as the animals moved, had a very 

 pretty effect. Since that time the water-vole has been repeatedly 

 seen about the lower reaches of the same river, between the Inchree 

 Falls and the highway. It has also been seen in some parts of the 

 Blackwater above Kinlochleven. Ardent disciples of Izaak Walton 

 and others interested in the preservation of trout and salmon hold 

 the water-vole in great dislike, under the behef that it feeds largely 

 on fry and ova. The accusation we believe to be unfounded, as 

 much so as the egg-eating charge against the hedgehog. We shall 

 not attempt to prove a negative, the onus prohandi of their aver- 

 ments logically resting with the accusers ; but we wUl say that we 

 have known the water-vole for many years, and at one time had 

 every opportunity of studying its habits, and we never had cause 

 to entertain the slightest suspicion that it was anything else than a 

 vegetable feeder. We recollect once questioning old John Robert- 

 son of Perth, than whom a better fisher, whether on lake or stream, 

 never cast a fly or impaled a worm, about the water-vole's alleged 

 liking for fish-spawn and fry. His reply was in these words, " I 

 dinna believe it, sir ; I have fished in maist feck o' the rivers, burns, 

 and lochs in Perth, Fife, and Kinross, and other counties forbye, 

 and the fish were just as plentiful where the splash o' the gleh 

 (a local name for the water-vole) was heard a'maist at every cast o' 

 the line, as where none could be seen for days together." We 

 know, besides, that the late Professor John Eeid of St. Andrews, 

 one of the most distinguished comparative anatomists of his day, 

 and who had dissected many of them, was of opinion that the 

 water-vole was a vegetable feeder and nothing else, he having 

 never been able to detect anything to lead him to the con- 

 clusion that it fed on fish or their spawn. Suspicion of the 

 water-vole's being addicted to the malpractices in question was 



