THE WATER RAT 493 



stalks they are often severed beneath the surface, brought up 

 or allowed to float, and then recovered. Water Rats have been 

 observed to eat, amongst other things, grass, clover, portions of 

 sword-flags, purple loosestrife, winter cress, creeping ranunculus, 

 marsh marigold, pondweed, leaves of duckweed, stems of the 

 white water-lily, horse-tails, fallen leaves of willow, ivy and 

 black poplar, acorns, and more rarely beet, mangels, swedes, 

 and potatoes/ In winter it may attack the roots and bark of 

 young trees and shrubs in orchards ^ or plantations,' and has 

 long been known to be occasionally destructive to osiers and 

 bullrushes. Messrs H. J. Charbonnier and C. Lloyd Morgan 

 accuse it of climbing nut-bushes to carry off the nuts, and 

 Mr C. E. Wright has seen one sitting on a bird's nest 

 eating haws like a Bank Mouse. It has been convicted of 

 devouring small fish, earthworms,* insects, ° and even young 

 ducks. The latter must be regarded as quite exceptional 

 provender,* unless already dead,'^ the fish quite occasional, 

 but the invertebrates more frequent. Mr F. J. Aflalo has 

 seen it fishing up larvae from the bed of the Hampshire 

 Stour, Mr Gordon Dalgliesh ^ has taken it in traps baited 

 with meat, Mr Forrest gives an instance of its eating a dead 

 trout lying on the bank of a stream, and Mr A. Patterson^ 



' Five black Water Rats were found in a potato pit at Airds, Newabbey ; 

 R. Service, Ann. Scott. Nat. Hist., 1904, 67. 



^ Duns, op. cit. ; T. B., Field, li,\i (piece of barked apple tree sent to editor). 



^ J. Hardy, on the authority of correspondents, stated {Proc. Berw. Nat. Club, 

 viii., 189, 1877) that the roots of young sycamores, willows, and oaks planted near 

 water frequented by Water Rats had been gnawed across, and the Water Rats were 

 thought to have done the damage ; but it does not appear that specimens were actually 

 caught in the act. At Cocks's former home at Great Marlow, two or three magnoliasi 

 of fairly large growth were killed at diflferent times, by the bark being gnawed away 

 just above the ground by Water Rats. 



' It is sometimes recorded to have been taken with fishing flies, perhaps by an 

 accidentally wide cast. 



^ E. R. Alston (in Bell) ; C. M. Butlin, Field, isth October 1910, 758. 



° CoUett gives an instance of a Norwegian Water Rat emptying the nest of a 

 wheatear. 



' W. Evans saw a half-eaten young redshank lying at the entrance of a burrow ; 

 probably the bird was not killed by the Water Rats. 



* Zoologist, 1902, 66 ; for a similar instance in the case of a roach, see P. M. 

 Watkins, Field, 8th December 1907, 1024. 



" Trans. Norf. and Norw. Nat. Soc, vi., 293, 6th April 1897, 1899 ; Zoologist, 

 1898, 306 ("Mammalia of Great Yarmouth"); Journ. cit., 1902, 11 1; Eastern 

 Norfolk, 1905, 317 ; Norfolk Estuary, 1907, 335. 



VOL. II. 2 12 



