THE WICKED WEASEL. 699 



will run right across your path, almost close enough to be kicked. 

 Pursue him in turn, and if there be no hedge or hole near, if you have 

 him in the open, he will dart hither and thither right between your 

 legs, uttering a sharp, short note of anger and alarm, something com- 

 posed of a tiny bark and a scream. He is easily killed with a stick 

 when you catch him in the open, for he is by no means swift ; but if 

 a hedge be near it is impossible to secure him. 



Weasels frequently hunt in couples, and sometimes more than two 

 will work together. We once saw five, and have heard of eight. 

 The five we saw were working a sandy bank drilled with holes, from 

 which the rabbits in wild alarm were darting in all directions. The 

 weasels raced from hole to hole and along the sides of the bank ex- 

 actly like a pack of hounds, and seemed intensely excited. Their 

 manner of hunting resembles the motions of ants ; these insects run a 

 little way very swiftly, then stop, turn to the right or left, make a 

 short detour , and afterward on again in a straight line. So the pack 

 of weasels darted forward, stopped, went from side to side, and then 

 on a yard or two, and repeated the process. To see their reddish 

 heads thrust for a moment from the holes, then withdrawn to reap- 

 pear at another, would have been amusing had it not been for the 

 reflection that their frisky tricks would assuredly end in death. They 

 ran their quarry out of the bank and into a wood, where we lost sight 

 of them. The pack of eight was seen by a laborer returning down a 

 woodland lane from work one afternoon. He told tis he got in the 

 ditch, half from curiosity to watch them, and half from fear laugh- 

 able as that may seem for he had heard the old people tell stories of 

 men in the days when the corn was kept for years in barns, and so 

 bred hundreds of rats, being attacked by those vicious brutes. He 

 said they made a noise, crying to each other short, sharp, snappy 

 sounds ; but the pack of five we ourselves saw hunted in silence. 



Often and often, when standing in a gateway, partly hidden by 

 the bushes, watching the woodpecker on the ant-hills, of whose eggs, 

 too, the partridges are so fond (so that a good ant year, in which 

 their nests are prolific, is also a good partridge year), you may, if you 

 are still, hear a slight, faint rustle in the hedge, and by-and-by a 

 weasel will steal out. Seeing you he instantly pauses, elevates his 

 head, and steadily gazes ; move but your eyes, and he is back in the 

 hedge ; remain quiet, still looking straight before you as if you saw 

 nothing, and he will presently recover confidence, and actually cross 

 the gateway almost under you. This is the secret of observation : 

 stillness, silence, and apparent indifference. In some instinctive way 

 these wild creatures learn to distinguish when one is or is not intent 

 upon them in a spirit of enmity ; and, if very near, it is always the eye 

 they watch. So long as you observe them, as it were, from the cor- 

 ner of the eyeball, sidewise, or look over their heads at something 

 beyond, it is well. Turn your glance full upon them to get a better 



