e Mediterranean
Sea? "The Straits of Gibraltar." Right again; and there the passage is
about five miles wide; and at Gibraltar swallows, swifts, and martins
are often seen as well as several other bird-visitors of this country.
People on board ship have seen swallows a long way from land passing
between Europe and Africa. Sometimes the poor birds are so tired from
their flight that they are obliged to rest on the masts, yards, and
rigging of the vessels. This often happens when the weather is hazy.
Holloa, Jack, what is that splash in the water about six yards off?
Keep quiet, and we shall see what it was. Ah! it is one of my friends,
the water-voles; I see the rogue, with his large yellow teeth and
black eyes. Do you see? He is on the other side of the drain, nibbling
away at something. People generally call him a water-rat, but he is no
relation at all to a rat, nor is he an injurious creature like it.
"Well, but papa," said Willy, "the lads in the village always kill
these water-rats, as they call them, whenever they can. I suppose they
take them for common rats. Do you say they do no harm?" Very little,
water-voles will not eat young chickens and ducklings; nor do they
find their way into stacks and consume the corn; their food is
entirely confined to vegetables, such as the roots and stems of
water-weeds. I feel, however, pretty sure that the water-vole is fond
of beans, and will occasionally do some mischief where a field of
newly-sown beans adjoins the river or stream, in the banks of which
these animals form their holes. I will clap my hands, and off our
little friend with his dusky coat starts, diving under the water,
whence when he comes out he will probably escape into a hole on the
bank. Some day I will show you the skulls of a water-vole and a rat,
and you will see there is a great difference in the form and
arrangement of the teeth, and that the first-named animal is not, as I
said before, related to the rat. The water-vole is really a relative
of that interesting creature you have often read of--I mean the
beaver. "Well, papa," said Jack, "I am tired of sitting here, let us
now go and hunt for peewit's eggs." All right, Jack, and if you find
any you shall each have one for your breakfast in the morning. When
hard-boiled and cold, a peewit's egg is a very delicious thing, though
I think the peewits are such valuable birds, and do so much good, that
I should not like to take many of their eggs. We had better