side the nest, would
feed to repletion without ever thinking of informing her friends of her
discovery. At such times she even became intoxicated, and I fancied
that, when she did at last get home, eager enquiries made as to the
whereabouts of the nectar met with incoherent replies, since the seekers
for information generally failed to profit by what they were told, and
had to cast about aimlessly for some time before finding the food. I
also observed that another ant was perfectly unselfish, and not only
would inform her companions directly she discovered honey, but would
assiduously feed the queen before attending to her own requirements. And
so my pets were separately known because of faults and failings or good
qualities that often seemed quite human.

A certain vole, living in the river-bank near the place where the
villagers met to hunt, was not easily mistaken for one of his fellows.
Whereas the general colour of a water-vole's coat--except in the variety
known as the black vole--is greyish brown, which takes a reddish tinge
when the light glances on it between the leaves, his was uniformly of a
dark russet. In keeping with this shiny russet coat, his beady black
eyes seemed to glisten with unusual lustre; and so it happened that the
question, "I wonder if Brighteye is from home?" was often asked as we
sent our hounds to search among the willows on the further bank; and
later it became a custom for the Hunt, before the sport of the evening
was begun, to pass up-stream for a hundred yards or so in order that he
might be left in peace.

He was quite a baby water-vole when first I made his acquaintance, but
the colour of his coat did not change with the succeeding months, and,
evening after evening, when the noisy hounds were safe at home or
strolling about the village street, I would quietly make my way back to
his haunt, and, hidden behind a convenient tree, carefully watch him. In
this way I learned many secrets of his life, noticed many traits in
which he differed from his companions, and could form a fairly accurate
idea of the dangers that beset him, and of the joys and the sorrows that
fell to his lot during the three years when his presence was familiar as
I fished in the calm summer twilight, or lay motionless in the long
grass near the place where he was wont to sit, silent and alert, before
dropping into the backwater and beginning the work and the play of the
night.

II.

THE BURROW IN THE RIV