Another animal besides the hedgehog has of recent years made its appearance in Lochaber, though previously unknown, so far as we are aware, anywhere in the West Highlands. The animal in question is the water-rat, water-vole, or British beaver. The last is, perhaps, its most appropriate name, for the animal is neither kith nor kin to the rat, while very much in its economy and habits, as well as in its corporeal structure, particularly its dentition, allies it not remotely to the beaver tribe. In size, the water-vole is more robust in body and larger in every way than the common rat, with a more silken pile, and a bigger and brighter eye. It frequents the banks of streams and ponds, feeding on the more delicate aquatic plants, and on the bark and tender shoots of the willow, alder, and such other shrubs as love to grow "The quiet waters by." That such an animal inhabited Lochaber was accidentally revealed to us two years ago, and so unmistakeably that there was no room for doubt or hesitation in the matter. We were returning from Fort-William on a beautiful summer afternoon, walking by the hill route through Lundavra, when having already accomplished more than half the distance at our best pace, we sat down to rest and solace ourselves with a pipe--not the Arcadian musical instrument, observe, but the more prosaic article anathematised in the royal Counterblast--by the side of a canal-like reach in the River Rhi, as it slowly winds through Glenshelloch, when our attention was drawn to a splash in the water at a short distance above us, to which, however, we gave but little heed, taking it for the lively flop of a half-pound trout engaged in fly-catching for supper. Another and a louder splash, however, aroused our curiosity, and induced us to creep cautiously in the direction whence the sound proceeded, and there, sure enough, disporting themselves round a gnarled alder stump that projected into the stream from the water-line on the opposite bank, were a pair of water-voles, full-grown, and brisk and lively as ever we had seen them in our younger days in the upper reaches of the beautiful Eden in Fifeshire, a favourite habitat. After watching their gambols for some time, we threw a pebble into the pool, when they instantly dived and disappeared, only to emerge in a few seconds near a large boulder further up the stream, behind which, and cunningly concealed beneath the overhanging bank, was their hole, into which they popped as readily as does an alarmed mouse into a wall crevice. As they dived and pursued their subaqueous flight in the direction of their hole, the eye could follow their every movement, for the water was as clear as crystal. Keeping very near the bottom, it seemed as if they progressed partly by swimming and partly by running along the gravel, at any rate with amazing celerity and ease. We noticed that about their necks and shoulders their pile appeared as if adorned with numberless tiny pearls--air bubbles, in