There is nothing in the appearance of the water-rat which gives any indication of its aquatic habits. For example, we naturally expect to find that the feet of swimming animals are webbed. The water-loving capybara of South America, the largest existing rodent, has its hoof-like toes partially united by webs, so that its aquatic habits might easily be inferred even by those who were unacquainted with the animal. Even the otter, which propels itself through the water mostly by means of its long and powerful tail, has the feet furnished with webs. So has the aquatic Yapock opossum of Australia, while the feet of the duck-bill are even more boldly webbed than those of the bird from which it takes its popular name. The water-shrews (whom we shall presently meet) are furnished with a fringe of stiff hair round the toes which answers the same purpose as the web. But the structure of the water-rat gives no indication of its habits, so that no one who was unacquainted with the animal would even suspect its swimming and diving powers. Watch it as long as you like, and I do not believe that you will see it eating anything of an animal nature. I mention this fact because it is often held up to blame as a mischievous animal, especially deserving the wrath of anglers by devouring the eggs and young of fish. As is often the case in the life-history of animals as well as of men, the blame is laid on the wrong shoulders. If the destruction of fish be a crime, there are many criminals, the worst and most persistent of which are the fish themselves, which not only eat the eggs and young of other fish, but, Saturn-like, have not the least scruple in devouring their own offspring. Scarcely less destructive in its own insidious way is the common house-rat, which eats everything which according to our ideas is edible, and a good many which we might think incapable of affording sustenance even to a rat. In the summer time it often abandons for a time the house, the farm, the barn, and seeks for a change of diet by the brook. These water-haunting creatures are naturally mistaken for the vegetable-feeding water-vole, and so the latter has to bear the blame of their misdoings. There are lesser inhabitants of the brook which are injurious both to the eggs and young of fish. Among them are several of the larger water-beetles, some of which are so large and powerful that, when placed in an aquarium with golden carp, they have made havoc among the fish, always attacking them from below. Although they cannot kill and devour the fish at once, they inflict such serious injuries that the creature is sure to die shortly.