KEEPERS AND KEEPERING 447 



searcli of food, they are quite fearless, and will let men approach close to 

 them before abandoning the chase. On one occasion the field observer saw a 

 family of seven or eight stoats systematically hunting out a brood of young 

 Grouse whUe the mother hovered about in a state of great anxiety, running 

 round just out of reach, and trying to draw the marauders away from the 

 brood. 



The stoat is a great traveller, and on occasions has been tracked for 

 miles in the snow. Like foxes, stoats seem to follow well-defined lines of 

 migration, and cases are known where keepers have by chance struck upon 

 these lines of march, and have been able to trap many more stoats than 

 were ever bred on their own beats. 



The stoat is not, as a rule, diflicult to trap. The edge of a dyke, or 

 an opening in a wall, a narrow gully or path between rocks, usually give the 

 best results. His curiosity is often his undoing, and he is, so to speak, his 

 own best bait. When placed in an open run the trap should be covered by 

 a flat stone overlying two uprights. The habit of the animal makes him 

 wish to investigate all objects of interest without attracting attention, and 

 often merely the satisfaction of exploring a partly concealed passage between 

 two stones is a sufficient draw ; when the corpse of a dead brother is placed 

 on the flat stone above, the probability of a kill is greatly increased. 



Stoats are rarely killed down in sufficient numbers. Like every other 

 kind of vermin they seem to congregate wherever the stock of game has 

 begun to increase ; hardly any moor is without them, and a good keeper 

 will kill his thirty to sixty stoats a year, and keep on doing so year in 

 year out without apparently making any impression on the source of supply. 

 The lazy man, on the other hand, has one of two standard excuses which 

 many moor - owners will recognise : on the rabbit - ridden moor — that the 

 stoats confine their attention to ground game ; on the moor where there are 

 no rabbits — that there are no stoats. No credence should be given to 

 either statement. Every keeper should have several dozen of the best 

 steel traps (it is useless to employ any other kind) always set and left 

 out on the stoat runs as long as they will spring. 



The weasel is very similar in his habits to the stoat. He also hunts in 

 packs, but he is not quite so destructive to game, and feeds more 

 readily on mice, moles, voles, etc. 



Amongst other four-footed vermin the wild cat, pole cat, hedgehog, may 



