Most animals can swim, can't they? Hedgehogs even? Don't know. We have had here examples of hares swimming (and one of a hare which, being pursued and coming to a river was able to cross and keep his feet dry, so to speak, by hopping onto the back of a swan that was in midstream, and from there to the other bank). Best act of all was surely that of a fox, which was seen carrying something white in its mouth and backing into a pond. When he got to the middle, he slowly sank out of sight, leaving only the white object on the surface. He got out of the water on the other side, shook himself and trotted off. The observer, curious, got a long stick and pulled the white object towards him. It was sheeps' wool and covered with fleas. Now how did the fox know that the fleas on his body would scramble for the wool at the surface? This story was from Bath in England. And the letter was followed by one relating to a similar incident of fox and water and fleas, but this time it was not wool but a tennis ball - the fleas were the same - and this was in Turkey. Both published in an anthology from the Field, dated 1958. You have to believe it. In the same volume is a tale of a squirrel (red), which climbed onto the shoulder of an angler in the Spey river in Scotland, was dislodged by the unsentimental angler, and swam through the "strong current" to the other bank.
Curious coincidence. In the Christmas, no, millennium special of the monthly Field is a story of a squirrel (grey this time) which wasn't so lucky. "Aqua-Rodent" is the heading to a letter from a Mr Samuelson of London. While he was at Old Portsmouth near the entrance to the harbour, he saw a "common grey squirrel" on the sea wall. For a while it sat on a small spit of shingle then, after, you might think, assessing the situation, it was into the water and heading for Gosport some 400 yards across. People cheered as its little grey head was seen about the middle of the passage, bobbing over the waves. Alas, the 34,000-ton P&O Pride of Le Havre came to harbour. In the wake of its wash some thought they still saw the bobbing head, but the wash was so heavy the writer felt sure the brave squirrel had "gone to Davy Jones's locker." He asks if anyone else has seen the like. Y