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 River, I saw a
water-vole on the opposite bank. The animal was sitting on a small stump
close to the water's edge. Having, of course, the pistol with me, and
wanting to dissect a water-vole, I proceeded to aim at the animal. This
was not so easy as it looked. A water-vole crouching upon a stump
presents no point at which to aim, the brown fur of the animal and the
brown surface of the old weather-beaten stump seeming to form a single
object without any distinct outline; moreover, it is very difficult to
calculate distances over water.
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