204 Habits and Food 



been repeatedly led to a distance and back to the stream again, 

 until we were near its source. At last we saw that he had 

 entered below the ice on a little pool, and, emerging at an- 

 other place, took his way to the hill with longer springs than 

 he had hitherto done while hunting for frogs. By this time 

 an hour or two had passed, and my companion began to 

 speak about his hirsel, hinting that he ought to return. I well 

 knew that this was only " from the teeth forward," as in 

 such a calm day the sheep needed none of his care. Well, 

 I noticed that at every bound of the foumart, adjoining to 

 the footprints there was an extra-mark upon the light snow, 

 which I made him observe, and said that the animal had 

 assuredly caught a frog in some lateral hole under the bank 

 of the pool we had seen him enter, and that, as he was now 

 taking a direct line to his hole with the frog in his mouth, we 

 were sure to have him. We had along with us, besides the 

 shepherd's two dogs, and a sheep-dog of my own, a capital fox 

 terrier, well tried in many a mossy hole in the range of 

 mountains between Selkirkshire and Tweeddale, and a grey- 

 hound from which fox or hare had rarely made an escape. 

 The latter was allowed to follow us partly to indulge him, 

 for he knew well what we were after, and partly in case the 

 track of a hare might cross our way upon our return home*; 

 for there is no coursing so interesting and exciting as tracking 

 the hares in a light snow, as then they never sit close, and 

 it requires much caution ; and they run at least as well, and 

 are better seen. So on we went. The smell of the polecat is 

 powerful and permanent, and we had much plague in keeping 

 the dogs behind us, that in their eagerness they might not 

 trample upon and obliterate the track ; for one and all seemed 

 to think we were nearing our prey. The creature had taken a 

 straight course eastward for the ridge of a mountain whose 

 side we were ascending. We knew there were peat mosses 

 (that is, peat bogs, where the peat is cut from) on the summit; 

 and we expected that our now tedious pursuit would end there ; 

 but we reached the summit of the ridge and the peat moss, 

 yet the foumart held on his way. His forelegs being rather 

 of the shortest, and the snow here somewhat deeper, the 

 unfortunate paddock, which its enemy evidently carried by a 

 limb, made a full mark with its body at every spring. 



We could not so well guess now the termination of our 

 hunt; so we stopped to breathe, and look around us. The sun 



* " An' hunger' d maukin ta'en her way 

 To kailyards green, 

 While faithless snaws ilk step betray 



Whare she has been." Burns. — J. D. 



