vole

Sons grew up to become less likely to form bonds with mates, making another generation of single-parent vole families more likely.

With most diseases spread by rodents, the mouse or rat or vole is only an intermediary (a “host”) for fleas and lice and the like.

The vole found quite a shoal of fish collected near the reeds; and for a few moments he frolicked about the edge of the shallow.

More than half-way across the pool a large boulder stood out of the water, but the vole was heading towards the bank above.

Close beside the river's brink, as the shadows darkened, he found the fresh scent of a female vole.

By the middle of May, when another vole family of six had arrived, the number of vermin in the valley had perceptibly diminished.

It was mingled with the faint odour of a field-vole that, doubtless, had been pursued and carried away by its persistent enemy.