sustenance
even to a rat. In the summer time it often abandons for a time the
house, the farm, the barn, and seeks for a change of diet by the brook.
These water-haunting creatures are naturally mistaken for the
vegetable-feeding water-vole, and so the latter has to bear the blame of
their misdoings.

There are lesser inhabitants of the brook which are injurious both to
the eggs and young of fish. Among them are several of the larger
water-beetles, some of which are so large and powerful that, when placed
in an aquarium with golden carp, they have made havoc among the fish,
always attacking them from below. Although they cannot kill and devour
the fish at once, they inflict such serious injuries that the creature
is sure to die shortly.

I do not mean to assert that the water-vole is never injurious to man.
Civilisation disturbs for a time the balance of Nature, and when man
ploughs or digs the ground which had previously been untouched by plough
or spade, and sows the seeds of herbs and cereals in land which has
previously produced nothing but wild plants, he must expect that the
animals to whom the soil had been hitherto left will fail to understand
that they can no more consider themselves as the owners, and will in
consequence do some damage to the crops.

Moreover, even putting their food aside, their habits often render them
obnoxious to civilised man. The mole, for example, useful as it really
is in a field, does very great harm in a garden or lawn, although it
eats none of the produce.

The water-vole, however, is doubly injurious when the field or garden
happens to be near the water-side. It is a mighty burrower, driving its
tunnels to great distances. Sometimes it 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 aggrega