[TAME VOLES.]
One day last August, when strolling in a secluded part of my garden, I was surprised to see some little brown mice playing about and racing after each other without at all regarding my presence.
I stood and watched these playful gambols, and soon discovered that the little animals were short-tailed field-mice, or voles, as I believe they ought to be called. Some differences in structure separate the voles from the true mice and rats; they also differ in their food, the voles being almost entirely vegetable feeders.
The water-rat, so called, is a vole and a perfectly harmless little animal. I often endeavour to explain this fact to farmers and working-men, who seem to think they have done something meritorious when they have hunted to death one of these voles, whose harmless diet consists chiefly of duckweed, flag, rushes, and other water-plants; but, unfortunately, it looks like a land rat, and so it has to suffer for the evil reputation of its relative.
There are two small voles, the red field-vole and this commoner short-tailed species which inhabits my garden.
I had often wished to catch and keep these little animals as pets for purposes of study; and, finding some specimens already so tame, I began to entice them to come to a special place under a stone archway by daily strewing at exactly the same spot some oatmeal and canary seed.
Very soon the tiny creatures would allow me to stand and watch them feeding, and I drew nearer and nearer until I could almost touch them.
I then put a mouse-cage under the arch in the hope that they might accept it as a home and thus be led into voluntary captivity. This new idea met with a measure of approval, for one little vole scooped out a small cavity beneath the cage and appeared to make itself quite at home there, even allowing me to lift up the cage without moving, gazing curiously at me with its small black eyes.
This went on from August until October. The voles and I grew to be quite good friends; but, as the colder weather would soon be hindering my daily visits, our friendship would have to cease unless I could bring my small pets indoors.