1903 Notes on the Weasel Tribe 23 



British Isles, they vary, but few Stoats in England, I believe, 

 go completely white. 



He is the merriest of little beasts, and delights in gambol- 

 ing. Even when pursuing his prey he will give vent to the 

 wildest of antics. I know him best in Norway, where I 

 have often watched him at play. He is very fond of running 

 about near the river, very angry when I point my rod at him, 

 and if I trouble him much he takes freely to the river. An 

 old fisherman has told me that he has twice met him in the 

 middle of the narrow fjord swimming, and that on offering 

 him an oar he climbed into the boat. One day up on Vexel 

 Vand, my gillie, Ivar Kriken, found a female stoat who had 

 torn up a dry cow-pat, and was swimming across the lake, 

 pushing her young family before her upon that raft. Food 

 is not very plentiful in these parts, and they seem to depend 

 on shellfish and the like, which they get at low tide, for 

 I have often seen them running over the rocks and sea- 

 weed. 



The Common Weasel (Mustela vulgaris) never much ex- 

 ceeds 8 inches. Its colour is duller, its tail flatter, and of 

 the same colour as its body. Both it and the stoat can 

 climb, and both occasionally use mole-runs as a habitat in 

 winter. But though the Weasel will at times attack bigger 

 game, its chief food is field-mice, rats, and moles, so that it 

 is rather the farmer's friend than his enemy. Like the 

 Stoat, it occasionally goes after rabbits. I have met it 

 hunting them in banks in Wales. When either of the 

 species go a-hunting, it is a poor look-out for the rabbit. 

 There is no place of safety for him. If he go home, he will 

 be run to earth. If he take to his legs, the Weasel or Stoat 

 pursues him doggedly like a dachshund. A friend of mine, 

 returning from shooting in Shropshire, told me that a much- 

 besweated rabbit ran across in front of the horse, and as soon 

 as he had passed a weasel came out after him, and retired 

 with reluctance after a free application of the whip. In 

 Victor Hugo's 'Notre Dame' the King of the Gipsies in- 

 cidentally remarks that the Weasel is called " adouine."' I 

 do not know if any of my readers can explain the meaning of 

 the term, and pass on to a remark in White's ' Selborne.' 



Apart from the recognised species, " there is a little reddish 



