World Scene

Better watch out Mr Toad, Ratty's eating frogs

British ecologists have discovered evidence that normally herbivorous water voles living alongside canals and rivers have been eating frogs' legs this spring.

The timid water vole, immortalised as "Ratty" in the Wind in the Willows children's novel and films, is Britain's fastest declining mammal and is known to have a largely vegetarian diet consisting of grass and plants.