ie} 
to 
The Stoat and its ways. 
The voracity of stoats is so great that Pallas declares, 
‘‘in the course of a day ”’—7.e., I presume, in twenty-four hours— 
“they would generally devour more food than was equal to their 
own body in weight.’ I have never kept them in confinement, 
but hardly think, judging by analogy from the ferret or domesti- 
cated polecat, that the daily average of regularly fed animals 
would be so high, though occasionally it might be the case. ‘the 
matter is, however, of importance to game-owners. It shows 
why stoats collect such huge stores of food in their refuges; and 
why they die so rapidly-—in three days and nights—when they 
are cut off from food and vrater in neglected box-traps. If traps 
are not visited every day with methodical regularity, the most 
humane trap for stoats is the large size spring rat-trap. Where 
their food abounds, stoats will not as a rule touch carrion, and 
baited traps are more or less useless. While in other parts, 
where animal life is more or less rare, as on moor lands, any bait, 
the more putrid by preference, will attract them from long 
distances. Early in the season, when they are near enough to 
view or scent them, the eggs of any kind of bird will bring them 
between the jaws of the trap. Keepers long ago discovered that, 
under all circumstances, the best lure to draw stoats to destruction 
is the dead body of one of their own species hung over or near 
the trap. If the mother be caught, all her offspring may be 
taken, to the number of a dozen if she has as many, without 
moving the trap. Even other wandering stoats, in no way 
connected with the family, which may have been destroyed 
entirely, are frequently taken too. Failing a dead stoat for a 
lure, a weasel or a polecat is nearly as attractive. Stoats, lke 
weasels, hunt in packs, but only family packs in both cases, I 
believe. If two males meet they fight, I know; and have every 
reason to believe that when two family packs come across one 
another in their wanderings there is a battle royal between them 
for the hunting rights of the district. 
When keepers and trappers have carefully studied the mode 
of life of the vermin they desire to capture, there is no difficulty 
in taking them. ‘The stoat is no exception to this general rule. 
Lay your plans in a wily way, and your trap in its path, and 
there is nothing more easily taken than. the stoat. If he be 
