The Girls Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 355, October 16, 1886 | Page 6

manages to burrow into a kitchen-garden, and feeds quite impartially on the different crops. It has even been seen to venture to a considerable distance from water, crossing a large field, making its way into a garden, and carrying off several pods of the French bean.
In the winter time, when other food fails, the water-vole, like the hare and rabbit, will eat turnips, mangold-wurzel, the bark of young trees, and similar food. Its natural food, however, is to be found among the various aquatic plants, as I have often seen, and the harm which it does to the crops is so infinitesimally small when compared with the area of cultivated ground, that it is not worthy of notice.
Still, although the harm which it does to civilised man in the aggregate is but small, even its most friendly advocate cannot deny that there are cases where it has been extremely troublesome to the individual cultivator, especially if he be an amateur.
There are many hard men of business, who are obliged to spend the greater part of the day in their London offices, and who find their best relaxation in amateur gardening; those who grow vegetables, regarding their peas, beans, potatoes, and celery with as much affection as is felt by floriculturists for their roses or tulips.
Nothing is more annoying to such men than to find, when the toils of business are over, and they have settled themselves comfortably into their gardening suits, that some marauder has carried off the very vegetables on which they had prided themselves.
The water-vole has been detected in the act of climbing up a ladder which had been left standing against a plum tree, and attacking the fruit. Bunches of grapes on outdoor vines are sometimes nipped off the branches by the teeth of the water-vole, and the animal has been seen to climb beans and peas, split the pods, and devour the contents.
Although not a hibernating animal, it lays up a store of food in the autumn. Mr. Groom Napier has the following description of the contents of a water-rat's storehouse:--
"Early in the spring of 1855, I dug out the burrow of a water-vole, and was surprised to find at the further extremity a cavity of about a foot in diameter, containing a quantity of fragments of carrots and potatoes, sufficient to fill a peck measure. This was undoubtedly a part of its winter store of provisions. This food had been gathered from a large potato and carrot bed in the vicinity.
"On pointing out my discovery to the owner of the garden, he said that his losses had been very serious that winter owing to the ravages of these animals, and said that he had brought both dogs and cats down to the stream to hunt for them; but they were too wary to be often caught."
I do not think that the owner of the garden knew very much about the characters either of the cat or water-vole.
Every one who is practically acquainted with cats knows that it is next to impossible to point out an object to a cat as we can to a dog. She looks at your finger, but can never direct her gaze to the object at which you are pointing. In fact, I believe that pussy's eyes are not made for detecting objects at a distance.
If we throw a piece of biscuit to a dog, and he does not see where it has fallen, we can direct him by means of voice and finger. But, if a piece of meat should fall only a foot or two from a cat, all the pointing in the world will not enable her to discover it, and it is necessary to pick her up and put her nose close to the meat before she can find it.
So, even, if a water-vole should be seen by the master, the attention of the cat could not be directed to it, her instinct teaching her to take prey in quite a different manner.
The dogs, supposing that they happened to be of the right breed, would have a better chance of securing the robber, providing that they intercepted its retreat to the water. But if the water-vole should succeed in gaining its burrow, or in plunging into the stream, I doubt whether any dog would be able to catch it.
Moreover, the water-vole is so clever in tunnelling, that when it drives its burrows into cultivated ground, it almost invariably conceals the entrance under a heap of stones, a wood pile, or some similar object.
How it is enabled to direct the course of its burrow we cannot even conjecture, except by attributing the faculty to that "most excellent gift" which we call by the convenient name of "instinct."
Man has no such power, but when he wishes to drive a