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utilitarian ^^e^v of the question, in the hope that something may 

 be clone before it is too late to check the indiscriminate destruc- 

 tion of the native beasts and birds of prey. One of those 

 predatory animals, the fox fcanis vulpes), I may pass over. 

 There is no fear of foxes being exterminated in this district for 

 some time to come, either by fair or foul means. The badger 

 (nicies taxus) and polecat (miistela jnitoriusj may, I suppose, 

 be considered extinct hereabouts, although I can recollect when 

 the latter animal was quite common ; and, indeed, I i-emember, 

 when a boy, seeing a nest of young ones dug out of a hole in our 

 own garden. The same fate which has befallen the polecat seems 

 likely soon to overtake the stoat (M. ermhw), a more useful 

 animal, in my opinion, and one deserving of more consideration 

 than he has hitherto met with. I look upon the stoat as our 

 best protector from the legions of rats which now threaten, not 

 only to eat us out of house and home, but even to pull down the 

 very houses in which we live. The country simply swarms with 

 rats. Every ditch and burn is infested by them, and therefore, 

 though thei'e is an endless number of different ways of killing or 

 driving them away from houses, all those various expedients, 

 however ingenious, are in vain except as means of obtaining 

 temporary relief. As soon as one batch of rats is killed off or 

 expelled, a fresh lot are ready to take up the quarters they have 

 vacated. The only effectual check upon tiie rat is the stoat, who 

 hunts him down with deadly pertinacity in his favourite haunt — 

 the ditch or running stream. Although the rat can swim like a 

 fish, and can thus escape from a dog or cat, he has a poor chance 

 of saving his life when pursued by a family of stoats. As I have 

 seen myself in the days when stoats were plentiful, they hunt the 

 rat as a pack of foxhounds hunt the fox, and can boast of a much 

 larger percentage of kills. The stoat is undeniably an enemy to 

 game, and is therefore very naturally an object of hatred to the 

 gamekeeper. It would be unreasonable, I think, to blame the 

 keeper for waging war against an animal which he looks upon as 

 a dangerous enemy to the game which it is his duty to protect. 

 Admitting, however, that the stoat is a poacher, and destructive 

 to game, is there not good reason for believing that the rat is as 

 bad 1 "Would not a few stoats be a lesser evil than legions of 

 rats infesting every brook and every hedgerow, and doubtless 

 robbing many a partridge or pheasant's nest ? When we consider 

 the large nujuber of rats that two or three stoats would kill in 



