his favourite feeding
place.

Whether or not the other voles frequenting the burrow by the willows had
shown their disapproval of such a habit I was never able to discover.
One fact, however, seemed significant: Brighteye parted from his parents
as soon as he was sufficiently alert and industrious to manage his own
affairs, and, having hollowed out a plain, one-roomed dwelling, with an
exit under the surface of the water and another near some primrose-roots
above the level of flood, lived there for months, timid and lonely, yet
withal, if his singing might be regarded as the sign of a gladsome life,
the happiest vole in the shadowed pool above the village gardens.

It has been supposed by certain naturalists that the song of the
house-mouse is the result of a disease in its throat, and is therefore a
precursor of death. The mouse that came to my study ceased her visits
soon after the week had passed and was never seen again; and I was
unable to determine how her end was hastened. Brighteye could not, at
any rate, have suffered seriously, else he would have succumbed, either
to some enemy ever ready to prey on the young, the aged, the sick, and
the wounded of his tribe, or to starvation, the well-nigh inevitable
follower of disease in animals. He always seemed to me to be full of
vitality and happiness, as if the dangers besetting his life only
provided him with wholesome excitement, and sharpened his intellect far
more finely than that of the rest of his tribe.

III.

WILD HUNTING.

Once, during the first summer of the water-vole's life, I saw as pretty
a bit of wild hunting as I have ever witnessed, and my pleasure was
enhanced by the fact that the quarry escaped unharmed. Early in the
afternoon, instead of during twilight, I, in company with the members of
the village Hunt and their mongrel pack, had searched the stream and its
banks for rats, and had enjoyed good sport. Suddenly, however, our
ragamuffin hounds struck the line of nobler game: Lutra, the otter, was
astir in the pool.

I was not surprised, for on the previous night, long after the moon had
risen and sleep had descended on the village, I, with Ianto the
fisherman, had passed the spot on returning from an angling expedition
eight or ten miles up-stream, and had stayed awhile to watch the most
expert of all river-fishers, as she dived and swam from bank to bank,
and sometimes, turning swiftly into the backwater, landed on the shingle
close