fact--that adhered to their fur, and that, frequently shifting the position like quicksilver drops, as the animals moved, had a very pretty effect. Since that time the water-vole has been repeatedly seen about the lower reaches of the same river, between the Inchree Falls and the highway. It has also been seen in some parts of the Blackwater above Kinlochleven. Ardent disciples of Izaak Walton and others interested in the preservation of trout and salmon hold the water-vole in great dislike, under the belief that it feeds largely on fry and ova. The accusation we believe to be unfounded, as much so as the egg-eating charge against the hedgehog. We shall not attempt to prove a negative, the onus probandi of their averments logically resting with the accusers; but we will say that we have known the water-vole for many years, and at one time had every opportunity of studying its habits, and we never had cause to entertain the slightest suspicion that it was anything else than a vegetable feeder. We recollect once questioning old John Robertson of Perth, than whom a better fisher, whether on lake or stream, never cast a fly or impaled a worm, about the water-vole's alleged liking for fish-spawn and fry. His reply was in these words, "I dinna believe it, sir; I have fished in maist feck o' the rivers, burns, and lochs in Perth, Fife, and Kinross, and other counties forbye, and the fish were just as plentiful where the splash o' the gleb (a local name for the water-vole) was heard a'maist at every cast o' the line, as where none could be seen for days together." We know, besides, that the late Professor John Reid of St. Andrews, one of the most distinguished comparative anatomists of his day, and who had dissected many of them, was of opinion that the water-vole was a vegetable feeder and nothing else, he having never been able to detect anything to lead him to the conclusion that it fed on fish or their spawn. Suspicion of the water-vole's being addicted to the malpractices in question was first of all grounded on the fact that fish-bones were frequently found along the banks of the streams he inhabited, and sometimes about the entrance of, and even in, the hole which was his habitat and home; and on this evidence alone the water-vole soon got into very bad repute indeed. As to the finding occasionally of fish bones along a water-vole inhabited stream, although the fact is indisputable, it really goes for nothing, suspicious as it looks, for similar relics of defunct trouts and troutlets may be seen any day on the margin of streams where a water-vole was never yet known to exist. The real culprits in such cases are the otter, the common rat (a great fish-eater in shallow streams and almost as expert a swimmer as the vole itself, only that it cannot dive so well), the heron, king-fisher, and grey crow, all of whom are fond of fish, either as an article of constant diet, or as an occasional make-shift in default of more legitimate fare.