bed on the further side. For a time no
sign of a living creature was visible; then a brown rat crept along the
bank beneath my hiding place; a dim form, which from its size I
concluded was that of Lutra, the otter, crossed a spit of sand about a
dozen yards above the reed-bed, where a moonbeam glanced through the
alders; and a big brown owl, silhouetted against the sky, flew silently
up-stream, and perched on a low, bare branch of a Scotch fir beside the
grass-grown path.

After another uneventful interval a slight movement was observable in
the reeds directly opposite. Straight in the line of the silver bar a
water-vole came towards me, only the head of the little swimmer being
visible at the apex of a V-shaped wake lengthening rapidly behind him.
More than half-way across the pool a large boulder stood out of the
water, but the vole was heading towards the bank above. Then, apparently
without cause, he turned quickly and made straight for the stone. He had
barely landed and run round to hide in a shallow depression of the stone
when the water seemed to swell and heave immediately beside the boulder,
and Lutra's head, with wide-open jaws, shot above the current.
Disappointed, the otter vanished under the shining surface of the
stream, came to sight once more in an eddy between the boulder and the
bank, and once more disappeared. I was keenly interested, for every
movement of the vole and the otter had been plainly discernible, so
bright was the night, and so close were the creatures to my hiding
place; and, raising myself slightly, I crawled a few inches nearer the
edge of the overhanging bank.

[Illustration: "AN OPPORTUNITY CAME, WHICH, HAD SHE BEEN POISED IN THE
AIR, COULD SCARCELY HAVE BEEN MISSED."]

For a long time the vole, not daring to move, remained in the shadow. I
had almost concluded that he had dived through some crevice into the
dark water on the other side of the boulder, when he cautiously lifted
his head to the light, and crept into a grass-clump on the top of the
stone. Thence, after a little hesitation, he moved to the edge, as if
contemplating a second swim. Fastidious as to his toilet, even in the
presence of danger, he rose on his haunches and washed his round, furry
face. The action was almost fatal. The brown owl, that had doubtless
seen him by the grass-clump and had therefore left her perch in the
fir-tree, dropped like a bolt and hovered, with wings nearly touching
the silver stream, abov