Vermin of the Farm. 
225 
be attributed to another species, namely, the bank vole (Arvicola 
glojreolus), already mentioned^ 
Besides these two little animals, both so destructive in their 
habits, we have still to notice the larger water vole or “ water 
rat ” {Arvicola amjphihius). Although commonly to be met with 
along the banks of rivers, streams, and mill-dams, where it 
sometimes does much mischief by perforating the banks and 
letting down the water, it burrows also in meadows sometimes 
at a distance from water, and in ploughed fields. In one of 
his delightful letters to Pennant,^ Gilbert White relates that — 
“ As a neighbour was lately ploughing in a dry chalky field far removed 
from any water, he turned out a water-rat, that was curiously laid up in an 
hybernaculum artificially formed of grass and leaves. At one end of the 
burrow lay above a gallon of potatoes regularly stowed, on which it was to 
have supported itself for the winter.” 
In hard weather, when the streams are frozen up, it will 
attack not only potatoes, but turnips, carrots, and mangel, 
as well as the bark of trees, such as willows and osiers. In 
the summer months it shows a preference for the inner or 
concealed parts of some species of sword-flags, which are very 
succulent and sweet-tasted. As this portion is usually under 
water, the animal gnaws the plant in two, near the root, when 
it x’ises to the surface, and being conveyed to some sound 
footing is consumed at leisure.^ It treats in the same way the 
large horse-tail {Equisetum), preferring the white succulent por- 
tion of the stem near the root. In default of this more favourite 
food, it will eat the common duck- weed, rejecting only the roots 
and other fibrous parts of the plant. 
There is no truth in the statement that the water vole is 
carnivorous ; at least, in the course of twenty years’ observation 
of its habits, we have never met with any proof of the assertion, 
and it is probable that the idea has arisen from confounding this 
animal with the common barn rat, which, as already noticed, 
takes to the country in summer, and haunts the banks of streams 
wherever there is shelter enough to favour its concealment. 
We have repeatedly shot water voles for the sake of their 
skins, and on examining the contents of the stomachs, found 
nothing but a mass of vegetable matter. 
For this reason, amongst others, the water vole may be 
regarded as comparatively harmless. Its chief fault is the 
* Of this species a long and tolerably complete account, with a figure, will 
be found in the Zoologist, 1887, pp. 361-371. 
^ Letter XXVI. to Thomas Pennant. 
? Pell, British Quadrupeds, 2nd ed., 1874, p. 319, 
