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. However, I fired, and missed. I naturally expected the animal to plunge into the river and escape. To my astonishment, it remained in the same position. Finding that it did not stir, I reloaded, and again fired and missed. Four times did I fire at that water-vole, and after the last shot the animal slowly crawled off the stump, slid into the river, and made off. Now in those days revolvers and breech-loaders did not exist, so that the process of loading a pistol with ball was rather a long and complicated one. First, the powder had to be carefully measured from the flask; then a circular patch of greased linen had to be laid on the muzzle of the weapon, and a ball laid on it and hammered into the barrel with a leaden or wooden mallet; then it had to be driven into its place with a ramrod (often requiring the aid of the mallet), and, lastly, there was a new cap to be fitted. Yet although so much time was occupied between the shots, the animal remained as motionless as a stuffed figure. When I crossed the river and examined the stump I found all the four bullets close together just below the spot on which the animal had been sitting, and neither of them two inches from its body. Although the balls had missed the water-vole, they must have sharply jarred the stump. I was afterwards informed that this semi-paralysis from sudden fear is a known characteristic of the animal. It seems to be shared by others of the same genus, as will be seen when we come to treat of the field mice.