The Stoat and its ways 1g 
game,” is not a “blood-sucker,” like the stoat, and eats up his 
food fairly cleanly. On the other hand, if the stoat can only get 
into a warm corner, with plenty of game round him, he is a 
perfect epicure, and will take blood here, and blood there, every 
mouthful from a fresh victim, and let the rest of the carcase rot. 
The food supply gathered together in the storehouses of stoats 
proves their thirst for blood as perfectly as it reflects the whole 
fercee natura of the locality where they are unearthed. By the 
banks of streams the water vole and common rat, with trout and 
other coarse fish, may be found, along with the waterhen and 
similar stream side loving birds. In spring the collection is 
varied with birds’ eggs and young and a supply of frogs. On the 
stubbles and arable land the contents of the larder vary greatly, 
with the elevation and nature of the soil. Greenfinches and 
chaffinches generally form the bulk of the supply, with an occa- 
sional long-tailed field mouse, corncrake, plover, or leveret. 
Much depends upon the time of year the hoard is discovered. On 
grass lands the stoat’s opportunities vary again. Blackbirds, 
thrushes, and “smaller fry” which feed along the hedge sides, or 
shelter in its cover, are frequent victims, with field mice and 
voles. A woodland store generally includes the squirrel, more 
often than not taken on the ground, but sometimes in its own 
_ nest, or while engaged in robbing birds of their eggs or young : 
much more rarely is it captured in its native branches. With it 
? may be found the long-tailed vole, young pheasants, coppice- 
q haunting birds, and the stoat’s relation—the weasel. 
In a sandy warren young rabbits form the bulk of the supply, 
with perhaps a pair of stone or whin chats, or a stone curlew, 
partridge, or young shield-duck. A sea coast dune would vary 
the supply again, but I have never discovered or seen the records 
of one. To my knowledge, too, the store of a grouse-moor stoat 
_has not yet been recorded ; though there can be little doubt that 
both localities furnish hoards. The neighbourhood of ponds on 
old grass pasture land is a favourite place for a collection. The 
treasured food varies much with the season. In the spring, 
leverets, eggs, and young waterhens may be discovered, with any 
of the smaller birds which come to drink and wash in the 
shallows. A stoat can leap six feet on to its quarry, and one bite 
