206 Habits and Food 



and decided proof that the food it trusts to is frogs. I was 

 at this time angling in the higher part of the Ettrick, where 

 it winds for some miles through luxuriant meadows. It was 

 in the month of June, before they were cut. I noticed a 

 track leading from the foot of the hills, through the rank grass, 

 towards the river's bank, narrow, like the nightly path of a 

 hare from her form ; but I instantly knew, from characters 

 that could hardly be well described, that it was the track of 

 a different animal. In such districts hares keep to the hills 

 during summer, and find their food every where, and do not 

 travel evening and morning to seek for it. For the same 

 reasons they make no form. In short, I soon concluded that 

 it was the morning path of a foumart, and soon found the 

 hole without the aid of a terrier that followed me. The dog 

 instantly barked, and with unusual fury began to dig with 

 his feet, and tear up large mouthfuls of the turf. But I was 

 aware that for all this the creature, in such deep alluvial soil, 

 might be lodged beyond his efforts ; and the more, that I had 

 concluded, from the appearance of the path, and the singular 

 fury of the dog, that it was that of a female to her young. 

 So I went to the nearest farm-house for a spade. 



I soon dug them out; Jive young polecats^ nearly half- 

 grown, sleek and clean, and well fed, and really pretty 

 innocent-looking things; and I saved them all but one from 

 the dog. They were comfortably embedded in dry withered 

 grass ; and where they were lodged all things were tight and 

 snug to a wonder : but in a side hole, of proper dimensions 

 for such a larder, I poked out, and counted most carefully, 

 forty large frogs and two toads. But the most [singular 

 thing was this, that they were all and every one of them 

 alive, but merely so ; capable of sprawling a little, and that 

 was all. For the mother, with a prudence and care for the 

 comfort of her family highly creditable, and guided by some 

 instinct to a surgical knowledge and skill that has ever since 

 appeared to me most unaccountable, had contrived to strike 

 them all with palsy. They were, as I said, merely capable 

 of sprawling, but not of moving away, or into the nest, which 

 would doubtless have been very nasty and inconvenient, as 

 any one may easily suppose. On examination, I found that 

 the whole number of paddocks, toads and all, were purposely 

 and dexterously bitten through the brain. Whether the 

 wounds were all given in one particular part of the brain, I 

 cannot say, not having at that time such a knowledge of 

 comparative anatomy as the foumart displayed ; but, except it 

 belong to that tribe of reptiles to survive being shot through 



