320 auvicolidjE. 



mass in its fore-paws, eats a small part only, and letting 

 the remainder fall, takes up some more in the same man- 

 ner, which is similarly treated and rejected. But it is 

 not at all seasons that food can be obtained in such abun- 

 dance, and, unlike the crafty inhabitants of our houses 

 and granaries, the Water Vole suffers great privations 

 during severe winters, when the streams are frozen up or 

 continuously flooded. At these, times, we have known 

 turnips and mangold-wurzel to take the place of aquatic 

 plants, and the bark of willow-trees and osiers is not 

 rejected. As considerable damage is sometimes sustained 

 by the owners of osier beds, owing to the depredations of 

 the Water Vole in times of scarcity, a war of extermina- 

 tion is carried on, and great numbers are destroyed during 

 protracted floods. Their holes, usually so secure, are 

 then inaccessible, and they are compelled to take shelter 

 in covert, which is only sufficient to conceal them, and 

 from which they are readily dislodged by dogs. Old 

 willow-trees, at these times surrounded by water, afford 

 a favourite and comparatively safe retreat, but a volley of 

 stones is generally found sufiicient to frighten the animal 

 into the water, and on its reappearance at the surface, — ■ 

 for it almost invariably dives when alarmed, — it is either 

 shot or hunted by dogs. Notwithstanding that great 

 numbers are in this manner destroyed, so secure are they 

 in their summer retreats, when the business of propagation 

 is going on, that their numbers appear to be again made 

 up, and we do not perceive that they become rarer from 

 year to year. 



The female produces five or six young in the month of 

 May or June ; sometimes as early as April, in which case 

 it is probable they will have another brood in the course 

 of the summer. 



Tlie head of this cuiimal is thick, short, and blunt • 



