es not see where it
has fallen, we can direct him by means of voice and finger. But, if a
piece of meat should fall only a foot or two from a cat, all the
pointing in the world will not enable her to discover it, and it is
necessary to pick her up and put her nose close to the meat before she
can find it.

So, even, if a water-vole should be seen by the master, the attention of
the cat could not be directed to it, her instinct teaching her to take
prey in quite a different manner.

The dogs, supposing that they happened to be of the right breed, would
have a better chance of securing the robber, providing that they
intercepted its retreat to the water. But if the water-vole should
succeed in gaining its burrow, or in plunging into the stream, I doubt
whether any dog would be able to catch it.

Moreover, the water-vole is so clever in tunnelling, that when it drives
its burrows into cultivated ground, it almost invariably conceals the
entrance under a heap of stones, a wood pile, or some similar object.

How it is enabled to direct the course of its burrow we cannot even
conjecture, except by attributing the faculty to that "most excellent
gift" which we call by the convenient name of "instinct."

Man has no such power, but when he wishes to drive a tunnel in any given
direction he is obliged to avail himself of levels, compasses,
plumb-lines, and all the paraphernalia of the engineer. Yet, with
nothing to direct it except instinct, the water-vole can, though working
in darkness, drive its burrow in any direction and emerge from the
ground exactly at the spot which it has selected.

The mole can do the same, and by means equally mysterious.

I may casually mention that the water-vole is one of the aquatic animals
which, when zoological knowledge was not so universal as it is at the
present day, were reckoned as fish, and might be eaten on fast days. I
believe that in some parts of France this idea still prevails.

With all its wariness, the water-vole is a strangely nervous creature,
being for a time almost paralysed by a sudden shock. This trait of
character I discovered quite unexpectedly.

Many, many years ago, when I was a young lad, and consequently of a
destructive nature, I possessed a pistol, of which I was rather proud.
It certainly was an excellent weapon, and I thought myself tolerably
certain of hitting a small apple at twelve yards distance.

One day, while walking along the bank of the Cherwell R