1 887-88.] Stoats and Weasels. 167 



in the Queenstown district he had spent £7000 in the two 

 years 1884 and 1885 in rabbit extermination." The Parlia- 

 mentary Committee referred to, in its report suggested that 

 " the least expensive and most certain remedy is that provided 

 by nature itself — viz., the distribution of the natural enemies 

 of the rabbit throughout the infested country. . . . That 

 stoats and weasels are extremely effective cannot be denied, as 

 it has been proved in every case where they have been turned 

 out that rabbits have been enormously reduced in numbers." 



As the consequence of the above report, I was asked to co- 

 operate in collecting a number of stoats and weasels to trans- 

 port to the colonies referred to. To collect three hundred of 

 these animals is no easy task, but where money is ungrudg- 

 ingly spent, it can be accomplished. In my boyish days I 

 often wondered how Samson caught the three hundred foxes 

 he turned among the corn of the Philistines, when it fre- 

 quently took the hounds of the Earl of Wemyss an entire day 

 to catch one ; and, in like manner, I at first thought that the 

 collecting and transporting of three hundred stoats and weasels 

 would be by no means a simple accomplishment. We, how- 

 ever, got the machinery set in motion. Advertisements were 

 inserted in provincial newspapers, and circulars were sent to- 

 gamekeepers all over Scotland, offering five shillings each for 

 every stoat or weasel forwarded alive. In due course they 

 began to arrive, and we have now collected over a hundred. 

 It will thus be seen that I have facilities afforded me for ob- 

 serving many of their habits and peculiarities which have 

 hitherto been denied to the closest observer. 



In writing on the weasel tribe, it is as well to state at the 

 outset that there are several species in this country. We have 

 the polecat and the marten, though these two are now so rare' 

 that it is useless enlarging on their characteristics, as only 

 once has a living specimen of each come under my observation. 

 The stoat and weasel are both still plentiful in all parts of the 

 country, and as it is these two species I have been collecting,, 

 it is to them I wish now to direct your attention. The stoat' 

 and weasel are often confounded together, and by country 

 people both are very generally designated " whaasels." These 

 destructive animals have, as a rule, been always regarded as 

 pests, and hitherto war has been universally waged against 



