18 The Stoat and its ways. 
“murrain” is nothing but canine distemper, or a disease so like 
it, which both dogs and mustelines are subject to, that no ordinary 
person can distinguish them. When dogs have it badly in a 
district the stoats are frequently all carried off; when ferrets get 
it, the dogs round less frequently take it and die. The murrain 
works wholesale destruction amongst polecats, stoats and weasels 
there can be little doubt, though I have found it most difficult to 
obtain circumstantial proof of the fact. An epizootic (as in the 
Ashby Decoy case just referred to) passes generally before it is 
observed. 
The habits and ways of the stoat are like those of its three 
nearest relations, although it is naturally more of an open country, 
hedge and streamside species than the marten or polecat. It is 
essentially a hunter of living things, loving the warm blood of its 
victims, but apparently preferring their flesh—when it must eat 
it— high” to fresh. It cannot climb down smooth, upright tree- 
trunks with the agility of the squirrel or marten, and yet will 
attack the nut-eater in its native tree-tops. It cannot follow the 
field mice and voles into their tunnels as easily as the weasel 
does, but they never escape from it in the open. It cannot swim 
under water for a lengthened period, like the otter, but it dives in 
taking its toll of trout, eels and coarse fish, weighing up to three- 
quarters of a pound. The polecat is not more bloodthirsty, or 
insatiable in its desire to kill for pure sport, or to keep its limbs 
and teeth lissom and sharp. So far as my personal notes extend, 
the world over record is held by the stoat which was captured at 
Penny Hill, there can be little doubt, from its having slept on the 
spot after a laborious night and full meal. This game little 
creature, which probably weighed only about twelve ounces at 
first, is recorded to have killed during one night eleven turkeys, 
thirty ducks and twenty chickens. It ought to have been stuffed, 
but I do not know whether it were. No fox record in my posses- 
sion can be compared with this performance when we think of the 
relative size and weight of the two animals. ‘The Tingewick 
Game Farm lost over a hundred pheasants killed by a single fox 
one night; but what was that to the little stoat’s gargantuan 
feast! The fox’s victims at the end of the year will total up to 
less than the stoat’s ; for reynard, with all his love of “a bt of 
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