Nothing is more annoying to such men than to find, when the toils of
business are over, and they have settled themselves comfortably into
their gardening suits, that some marauder has carried off the very
vegetables on which they had prided themselves.
The water-vole has been detected in the act of climbing up a ladder
which had been left standing against a plum tree, and attacking the
fruit. Bunches of grapes on outdoor vines are sometimes nipped off the
branches by the teeth of the water-vole, and the animal has been seen to
climb beans and peas, split the pods, and devour the contents.
Although not a hibernating animal, it lays up a store of food in the
autumn. Mr. Groom Napier has the following description of the contents
of a water-rat's storehouse:--
"Early in the spring of 1855, I dug out the burrow of a water-vole, and
was surprised to find at the further extremity a cavity of about a foot
in diameter, containing a quantity of fragments of carrots and potatoes,
sufficient to fill a peck measure. This was undoubtedly a part of its
winter store of provisions. This food had been gathered from a large
potato and carrot bed in the vicinity.
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