The result was fatal to both. The body of the eel having been forced beneath the gill-cover, the gills could not perform their office, and so the pike was as effectually suffocated for want of breath as were the heron and the cormorant. The dead bodies of the pike and eel were found on the bank of the River Bure in October, 1882. The second group consisted of a pike and a duck. The pike had attacked the duck as the bird was diving, and had tried to swallow it. It succeeded in getting the head, neck, and part of the breast down its throat; but the duck, in its struggles for life, had naturally spread its wings. These formed an insurmountable obstacle to the fish, and the result was that the duck was drowned and the pike suffocated, both having died for lack of respiration. * * * * * So the “plop” of the water-vole into the brook from the bank has not been to us the mere splash of a frightened animal into the stream. It has opened for us many trains of thought, and taken us into several sciences. It has shown us something of the links which connect it with man, birds, and fishes, and so has led us into ornithology and ichthyology. It has shown how the inventions of man have their prototypes in the animal kingdom. Comparative anatomy and physiology have also been shown to form portions of the life-history of the familiar animal, and have demonstrated the truth of the axiom enunciated on page 34, that no animal and no branch of science can stand alone. * * * * * Like other beings, the water-vole has its relatives, two of whom will come within the range of our subject. Being small creatures, they go by the popular name of mice, just as their larger relative is popularly called a rat. These are the FIELD-VOLE and the BANK-VOLE, both of which we may expect to find on the banks of our brook, especially when the banks are clothed with shrubs. The former of these animals is a very old acquaintance of mine, and when I was a lad I could go into a field and make almost certain of catching a field-vole (_Arvícola agrestis_) within about ten minutes. [Illustration: A CORMORANT STRANGLED BY AN EEL.] This little animal looks very much like a water-vole seen through the wrong end of an opera-glass, except that the fur is redder and the ears are longer in proportion to the size of the head. The tail is only about one-third as long as the body—a peculiarity which has earned for it the popular name of “short-tailed field-mouse.” A more appropriate name for it is “campagnol.” Even in this country the campagnol is apt to be one of the worst foes of the agriculturist, especially at harvest and seed time.