i6o BRITISH MAMMALS 



everything wild and apprehensive, be seen actually strolling 

 round the great herds of browsing beasts without disturbing 

 their equanimity. 



The stoat hunts by scent more than by sight, and when in 

 doubt darts backwards and forwards till it is certain that the 

 right track has been hit off, after which it trots along at a rapid 

 pace with its nose to the ground. This creature is almost 

 beneficial to man from the number of voles, mice, and rats which 

 it kills. Young stoats are mainly reared on mice and voles. 



The present distribution of the common stoat includes 

 England and Scotland, but not Ireland. It ranges through all 

 Northern Europe, Northern and Temperate Asia down to the 

 Himalayas, and North America almost as far south as the Mexican 

 frontier. In Northern Europe, Siberia, and North America it is 

 known as the ermine when in its beautiful winter dress of lemon- 

 tinted white with a black-tufted tail. The word " ermine " 

 in English is derived through the Norman-French from the 

 Teutonic harmin (Anglo-Saxon hearma). This again seems to 

 come from a Lithuanian word, sharmu. In its summer dress the 

 Anglo-Saxons seem to have often confused the stoat with the 

 weasel. It was called the stoat, or stot, weasel, meaning the bigger, 

 more pushing, energetic of the two beasts. " Stoat " is derived 

 from a Scandinavian and Low German root represented by the 

 Gothic stautan^ to push. It was a term often applied to male 

 animals in general, and is met with in dialectal English {jtoi) in 

 the sense of a stallion, or a young bullock. 



The stoat has seemingly inhabited England since the 

 Pleistocene period. 



Putorius hihernicus. The Irish Stoat 



This creature is peculiar to Ireland, from which country the 

 common stoat and the weasel are absent. For£a long time the 

 Irish Stoat was described as a large weasel, but it would seem to 

 be an independent species, and perhaps a dwarf form of the 

 common stoat. It is a smaller animal than the last named, being 

 barely 9 in. long from the tip of the snout to the base of 



