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His clumsy movements availed but little against the fierce agility of the red vole. Time after time he snapped at her and missed; for, even as he aimed, she could swing her lithe body round and leap upon him from behind. Nor, when they grappled, could he retain his hold on her. Against the leverage of those powerful hind legs he could do nothing. His cause, moreover, was a bad one.
In this region the burrows of the Vole abound; therefore this singular tithe ensures a considerable revenue to those who levy it, as may be understood when we remember the extent of the stores amassed by the animal.
Fascinated, the vole stayed awhile to look at the hovering hawk. Then, as the bird passed from the line of sight, he continued his way along the underground passage to the spot where he usually left his home by one of the narrow, clean-cut holes which, in a field-vole's burrow, seem to serve a somewhat similar purpose to that of the "bolts" in a rabbit's warren; and there he again looked out.
Parasitenkunde, July 1892, and Zoologist, September 1892. Zoologist, May 1893. It may be added that the Scottish Vole, which was so destructive about the same time, does not burrow to a depth like the Thessaly Vole, but lives in shallow runs amongst the roots of herbage.
Pas moyen, mon garcon. C'est dommage, tout de meme. Ah! zut! Je ne vole pas mon monde. Je ne suis pas ministre moi! Vous pouvez emporter votre petit sac." For a moment, biting her carmine lip, she deplored inwardly the tyranny of the rigid principles governing the sale of her influence in high places.
The female vole had watched the combat from a recess in the bank; and, when the victor returned from the river, she crept out trustfully to meet him, and licked his soiled and ruffled fur. But for the moment Brighteye was not in a responsive mood. Though his body thrilled at the touch of her warm, soft tongue, he recognised that his first duty was to make his conquest sure.
For the vole, guided as he was by his appetite, the most wholesome vegetable food was a ripe, well-flavoured seed. It contained all that the plant could give; leaf and stalk were tasteless compared with it, and were accepted only as a change of diet, or as a medicine, or as a last resource.
The river rose beyond the highest mark of summer freshets, till the low-lying meadow above the village was converted into a lake, and Brighteye's burrow disappeared beneath the surface of a raging flood. Gifted with a mysterious knowledge of Nature's moods which all wild animals in some degree possess the vole had made ready for the sudden change.
A low squeak of warning, uttered by the father vole as he dived into his burrow, caused the young mice foraging in the undergrowth to bolt helter-skelter towards home. Kweek, joining in the general panic, rushed across the field, and had almost disappeared underground when he felt the earth and the loose pebbles falling over him, and at the same time experienced a sharp thrill of pain.
He was "freezing" to induce the quarry to move and give himself away, because, since the vole was motionless, he had no idea where the little fellow was, although he seemed to be looking straight at him in that execrable way snakes have of seeming to look straight at everything. You think it was a battle of patience? W-e-ll, maybe. Maybe, too, it was a battle of nerves.
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