348 BIRDS, BEASTS, AND FISHES 



The rat-catchers find stoats difficult to trap; but they do 

 catch them, preferring to set their traps in a drain-pipe under 

 a gateway — a favourite haunt of the stoat. 



The Weasel, or Mouse-Hunter, 



Differs from a stoat as a mouse does from a rat. He is smaller, 

 quicker, less fierce ; otherwise, his habits and customs are 

 much the same as those of the stoat. But he has no black 

 tips to his tail, and is only seven inches long. 



He frequents corn-stacks, and old mole-holes in the river- 

 walls and hedgerows, as well as deserted rabbit-holes on the 

 warrens; for he loves dryness and warmth, and is not such 

 a lover of hunting by water as the stoat, though he can 

 swim as well. When running — and I have seen them 

 scamper for yards along a river-wall, for they never leave 

 their nests for long — he resembles a stoat ; but when he 

 stops, he does not stretch out his neck like a snake, but 

 seems to turn it between his shoulders more. Indeed, alto- 

 gether, in build and action he is more rat-like than the stoat. 



The nest, similar to a stoat's nest, is built in a hole in a 

 warm river-wall (dung betraying his presence), or in a rat's- 

 run, or at the bottom of a stack, and five young ones are 

 born there, and live and grow as do young stoats. But the 

 weasel nests earlier than the stoat. 



The weasel, too, hunts like the stoat, catching and feeding 

 on mice, young birds (including game-birds), if they get 

 separated from their parents or are weaklings, very young 

 rabbits and leverets, and rarely a rat ; but they will, on 

 occasion, fight a young rat, and win too. It is not probable 

 that they will take birds from old pheasants or partridges, 

 and may therefore be considered innocuous to game, though 

 they are more cunning than the stoat, being very swift, and 

 hardy too. Mice and voles are their chief food — mice by 

 the farmsheds, and field-voles on the marshes. Also, they 

 will suck small birds' eggs. 



