e them, and sat in the
middle of an ever-growing sphere of delicate network; finally, like his
mother, he tackled large, stiff grass stems, biting them into short
lengths, and splitting them, or letting them split themselves, lengthways.
By the time he was a month old, he was an expert nest-builder, and, given
the material, could build a complete nest for two inside the hour.

On the score of meat and drink he had no anxieties. A marshy meadow had
been selected by his forbears for colonization. The burrow terminated
outwardly on the bank of a half-dried watercourse, and, within its
recesses, was all manner of vegetable store--seeds, bulbs, leaves, clover,
and herbs in fascinating variety and profusion. Nor was there any lack of
greener food. Bog-grass surrounded the burrow, and the most succulent
portion of bog-grass is the most easily attained.

He soon learned to reach up on his hind legs and gnaw the standing plant.
The management of a dry and slippery corn-ear at first presented some
difficulty, but, as his muscles strengthened, he found himself able to
sit up on his haunches and hold it squirrel-fashion in his fore-paws,
nibbling, to begin with, at the pointed end, which is the best way into
most things. Once, as the family were grubbing together, a nut turned up
at the back of the pile. After a desperate conflict, he secured it, but,
the tough shell was too much for him. It takes a red vole's training to
reduce a nut.

[Illustration: NIBBLING, TO BEGIN WITH, AT THE POINTED END.]

So the weeks passed on, and he grew thicker and sturdier and more furry.
He was never graceful, like his cousin the red vole, for his face was
blunted, his eyes small, and his tail ridiculously insignificant. Nor
could he cover the ground with the easy swinging jump that makes one
suspect relationship between the red vole and the wood-mouse. Still for a
common, vulgar, agrarian vole, he was passable enough, and could hold his
own, tooth and nail, with his nest-fellows.

He was five weeks old before he commenced to go out foraging on his own
account. He never ventured far, but contented himself with timorous
excursions along the banks of the watercourse, crouching amid the
undergrowth, and ready, at the first scent of danger, to glide with
flattened body back to cover. Sometimes he accompanied his mother on her
visits to distant portions of the colony, but the old vole more often left
her octet behind, and then he would lie huddled up