5i8 MY GARDEN. 



necessary to rub the trap with another mole to ensure much success. A 

 great number were caught when I first had the garden, but now they 

 have materially decreased. 



The skin of this creature may be used for cloaks, but from the 

 number required such a cloak is an expensive article, and costs about 

 twenty guineas. 



Plutarch says, that the Egyptians rendered divine honours to the 

 mole on account of its blindness — darkness, according to them, being 

 more ancient than light ; and it was always held sacred to Buh, who 

 was one of the most ancient Egyptian divinities. 



" Pray you tread softly, that the blind mole may not 

 Hear a footfall."— Shakspeare, The Tempest. 



"The blind mole casts 

 Copp'd hills towards heaven, to tell, the earth is wrong'd 

 By man's oppression ; and the poor worm doth die for't." 



Shakspeare, Pericles. 



The Water Rat, or Vole (Arvicola amphibia, fig. 1113), lives in my 

 garden. It is really not a rat, but a small species of beaver. It 

 makes holes for itself in the banks of streams, and thus is very mis- 

 chievous by undermining banks of rivers and canals. It is a vegetable 

 feeder, and the statement that it is in the habit of devouring fish is a 

 false charge. It sometimes does me damage by gnawing the roots 

 of the trees, and rarely a winter passes without an apple or a nut-tree 



Fig. 1113.— Water Rat. Fig. 1114. — Brown Rat. 



having its roots cut within a few inches of the stem. We destroy the 

 vole by shooting it, but the cats appear to have nearly exterminated 

 them in my garden. When the vole takes to the water the air adheres 

 to the hair of the animal, and as it glides through the water below its 

 surface a silvery object is presented to view, which has puzzled many 

 persons, as in this respect it resembles the water shrew. 



