2286 Quadrupeds. 



inhabit, these animals, during severe weather and scarcity of food, ascend them, and 

 crawling along the branches soon despoil them of their fruit ; and when their bulk is 

 taken into consideration, it is astonishing with what agility and speed they accomplish 

 this operation. I have seen them poised amongst twigs so slender, that they were 

 seemingly unable to support a weight half so heavy as an arvicole's, and at an altitude 

 of four or five yards from the water. When alarmed suddenly, they will drop from a 

 branch several feet into the stream, and, disappearing, dive with rapidity to the near- 

 est bank and bury themselves in the earth. Judging from the numerous fragments of 

 the seeds, which lie scattered near their haunts, it appears that they subsist through 

 the winter months almost entirely upon haws or fruit of the wild rose, and probably 

 such vegetable matter as the moistness of winter leaves unwithered and undecayed. 

 In frosts and snows they peel the bark off hawthorn-bushes, and. I have seen whole 

 bushes laid bare by them, and the operation was performed in as neat a manner as 

 deer gnaw the bark off branches that are given to them in snows. This was the case 

 along the brook for miles during the severe frost which occurred in December, 1844, 

 and February, 1845. Water-rats peel the oziers in the beds [in] Donnington Park, 

 and do serious damage, and thus inflict great injury on the basket-makers. On 

 December 3rd, forty individuals were killed at one time. This animal is a great 

 favourite of mine, for he is quiet and unobtrusive, and devoid of those grosser 

 faults which have rendered the Hanoverian rat so obnoxious. He appears partial to 

 pools and stagnant waters, small running streams, &c, but exists in scanty numbers 

 along the Trent. He retreats during the day to his subterranean dormitory, and 

 issues from it during the early morning or towards the close of the day. He loves 

 those spots where the green rushes grow or the broad flags shade the water's surface : 

 beneath these he steals cautiously along, now stopping to nibble a blade of grass, and 

 now to examine the leaf of some water-plant which has attracted his notice; but if 

 during his ramble he hears the slightest noise, he instantly drops from the bank into 

 the stream, and, diving for a few yards, hurries on to a place of concealment. Some 

 grassy turf, slightly elevated above the water, is a most favourite spot with him, for 

 upon the slightest alarm he has a better opportunity of indulging in his amphibious 

 propensities. His food consists chiefly of vegetable matter, such as the leaves of 

 aquatic plants and tender flags, which I have observed him devour like a rabbit, sepa- 

 rating the blade near the root and nibbling it gradually to the other extremity. In 

 winter he is accused of resorting to turnip-fields which border upon his haunts, gnaw- 

 ing holes in the bulbs and thereby letting in rains, which decay and damage the crop. 

 He will also feed on fish wh^ch has been left by floods near his haunts, and I am 

 pretty sure that in cases of emergency he can take them alive, as I have often seen 

 parts of fresh fish lying near his haunts when no floods had occurred ; and these he had 

 evidently been eating, as might be told from the droppings which he had left behind 

 him. I have seen this animal on one occasion evince considerable courage. Walking 

 by the Blackwell Brook one day, I saw a water-rat run past on the opposite bank in 

 great haste : almost immediately afterwards came a stoat hot in pursuit, but evidently 

 running by scent: backwards and forwards ran both animals, within a certain space, 

 for upwards of ten minutes, when both made a dead pause within a yard of each other, 

 and I expected to have seen the rat fall a prey every moment ; but such was not the 

 case, for she ran forwards upon the stoat with great fury, and became in her turn the 

 pursuer, and was not content until she had driven her voracious enemy from the 



