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.’
The Rev. H. A. Macpherson noticed that a colony of Water Voles had taken
up their abode in the sandhills of Ravenglass, in Cumberland, and many other
instances could be cited of their making their winter retreats far from water.
Mr. W. Evans, in his excellent little book on the ‘ Mammals of the Edinburgh
District’ (p. 65), has noticed another instance of a colony living amongst sandy
ground, ‘ where a small stream enters the sea at Gosford Bay.’ In fact, in
Scotland, as the same writer remarks, any kind of ground seems to suit it so
long as there is water at hand, and it may be found in marshes near the coast,
ditches bordering fields, ponds in plantations, or in burns high up amongst the
hills.
Few of our native animals have been more unjustly vilified than the
inoffensive and harmless Water Vole. Owing to a certain external resemblance
to the brown rat he has few friends, and to most people he is only a water rat.
Often brown rats frequent the burrows of Water Voles, and lead a semi-aquatic
life, and so the innocent suffer for the sins of the guilty, for the average countryman
is seldom discriminative.
Outside their tortuous burrows, on the grassy bank, Water Voles may be seen
nibbling their meal of grass roots or water plants almost any fine morning or
evening. They are to a great extent diurnal, especially in the spring and autumn,
when they are often abroad the whole day. They are wonderfully quiet and
peaceable animals, and love to sit for hours lost in a ‘ brown’ study. When
unmolested they soon become very tame, and will permit a close approach. I
know of one small colony in a ditch by Warnham Pond, where the Water Voles
have often passed by me at a distance of three yards without being alarmed. I
have sat among the willows and watched them diving for roots at such close
range that one almost imagined oneself to be an honoured guest. They like to
sit up on their haunches to devour their food, but an insatiable appetite, common
to all Voles and mice, soon sends them again to the water to search for provender.
If you have time and patience at your command you can approach closer to
the Water Vole and enjoy his society with greater intimacy than any other
British mammal. I have often watched a Water Vole diving for flag-shoots,
and by running in to the spot where he had disappeared have met the surprised
animal as it reached the surface. Then if you keep perfectly still, or have already