2&6 Retrospective Criticism, 



generally, or by the severity of particular parts of this season. Does it 

 change for the season, or with the season ? 



In December, 1831, I observed an instance illustrative of the habits of 

 the stoat (M. erminea). While standing near a canal, about 14 ft. wide at 

 the surface of the water, and at the place where it joins a river, I saw one 

 of these creatures coming along the side of the river towards the canal. 

 It then ran up the side of the canal, repeatedly approaching the brink, as if 

 looking for a plank which usually lay across the canal, and which it most 

 likely had made use of on former occasions. When it came to the spot 

 where the plank had been, it without hesitation went into the water, and 

 swam straight across the canal, its head and tail only appearing at the sur- 

 face. After landing, and in making for a bank where some brown rats 

 (ilf us decumanus) lodged, it passed quite near to me, so that I saw that 

 its fur was perfectly dry. There was nothing at the time on the opposite 

 side of the canal to frighten this little active quadruped, or to force it into 

 the water for safety or retreat. On the contrary, its immersion and swim- 

 ming were voluntary and natural, and what it probably had often had 

 recourse to during its excursions. — r. Moray ^ February^ 1832. 



The fact of the stoat's crossing the water spontaneously, increases the 

 probability of the mole's doing it also, as conjectured (p. 78.) by J.D. 



The Stoat. — Your correspondent, J. M., appears (p. 77.) not to be 

 familiar with the natural habits of the stoat ; and if its " not changing 

 colour ^ere," means Great Britain, the statement is quite erroneous. They 

 abound in the neighbourhood where I now write, and it is equally impos- 

 sible to find a brown one here at Christmas, or a white one at midsummer. 

 The winter fur is perfectly white, excepting the lower half of the tail, 

 which is alwavs black. I have shot them in spring piebald with brown 

 and white. Their powers and habits are widely different from those of 

 the weasel, being infinitely more active in running, leaping, springing up 

 trees and stone walls, and nightly travelling over many miles of distance 

 beyond that of the weasel. It is, perhaps, of all other vermin, the most 

 destructive of game, more especially in the breeding season, when it inces- 

 santly preys on young hares and broods of pheasants. I have seen in a 

 chase of a half-grown hare by a stoat, as if the former had not the power 

 of exerting its best speed, but continued hopping forwards very moderately, 

 and the stoat, with an equally apparent moderation, chasing behind. Many 

 would be induced to attribute such an occurrence to what is mistakingly 

 called fascination in serpents, and which is nothing more than the parent 

 birds hovering over the reptile, and, like other parent animals, endeavouring 

 to decoy it away from their young. In the case of the hare and stoat, the 

 natural explanation seems to be that the latter was chasing the former 

 until it was sufficiently blown to be mastered by an animal so much less 

 than itself, and on the part of the hare, a consciousness that it could not 

 escape by flight, and was reserving itself for the struggle. This, however, 

 is offered merely as a conjecture. — J. Carr. Alnwick y Jan. 8. 1832. 



The Weasel (p. 77.). — The same correspondent's account of the weasel 

 is, in many particulars, correct; but he commits a strange blunder in asserting 

 that it is called a foumart in the north. F'oufnart is a corruption of foul- 

 mart, in opposition to sweetmart, a tree animal, ver}'^ similar in form and 

 colour, but longer ; and the three animals, weasel, stoat, and foumart, are 

 as well and as distinctly known here as sheep, cattle, and horses. I also 

 very miich doubt its " depredations on the chickens in the poultry yard." 

 In every such case the stoat, I believe, is the real and most destructive 

 depredator, and, indeed, is very generally amongst country people called a 

 ■yveasel. [In Cambridgeshire the true weasel is deemed destructive to poultry, 

 and destroyed, when practicable, accordingly. — J. Z).] The latter (the 

 weasel), in truth, is a most inoffensive creature; and if it ever does injury 

 to any one, it weighs as dust in the balance against its benefits. In «\ 



