were about a week old, a large brown rat, that on
several occasions in the previous year had annoyed the youthful
Brighteye, returned to the pool. Wandering through the run-ways, the
monster chanced to discover the opening from the bank to Brighteye's
chamber, and, thinking that here was a place admirably suited for a
summer resort, proceeded to investigate. The vole scented him
immediately, and, though the weaker animal, climbed quickly out and with
tooth and nail fell upon the intruder. An instant later, the mother vole
appeared, and with even greater ferocity than that of her mate joined in
the keen affray in order to defend her home and family to the utmost of
her powers. But the rat possessed great strength and cruel teeth, and
his size and weight were such that for several minutes he successfully
maintained his position. With desperate efforts, the voles endeavoured
to pull the rat into the water, where, as they knew, their advantage
would be greater than on land. They succeeded at last in forcing him
over the bank, and in the pool proceeded to punish him to such an
extent--clinging to his neck by their teeth and fore-feet, while they
used their hind-claws with painful effect on his body--that, dazed by
their drastic methods and almost suffocated, he reluctantly gave up the
struggle, and floated, gasping, down the stream.

The mother vole, though she and her spouse had proved victorious, was so
unsettled by the rat's incursion, that, as a cat carries her kittens,
she carried each of her young in turn from their nest to a temporary
refuge in a clump of brambles. Still dissatisfied, she removed them
thence to a shallow depression beside one of the run-ways, where,
throughout the night, she nursed them tenderly. At daybreak she took
them back to the warmth and the comfort of the nest. Shortly afterwards,
when their eyes were opened and they were following the parent voles on
one of their customary night excursions, the mother found herself face
to face with a far more formidable antagonist than the rat.

The baby voles, like the offspring of nearly all land animals that have
gradually become aquatic in their habits, were at first strangely averse
from entering the water, and had to be taken by their parents into the
pool. There the anxious mother, firm yet gentle in her system of
education, watched their every movement, and encouraged them to follow
her about the backwaters and shallows near their home. But if either