A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



which there was a run. I once caught seven, 

 two old and five young ones, in a barn there. 

 On two or three other occasions I have 

 turned out burrows on the fen, which have 

 contained eels and frogs generally half de- 

 composed.' In the Zoologist, 1888, p. 222, 

 Mr. Frere writes : ' I have seen their tracks 

 in the snow not many years ago, and now I 

 hear that there was one this winter within 

 two hundred yards of my house.' Roydon 

 and Diss are both in Norfolk, but have only 

 the river Waveney between them and Suffolk. 

 I am indebted to Captain Page of Woolpit 

 for the particulars of a strange incident which 

 occurred at the old rectory of that parish, 

 which is situated in the west central part of 

 the county. The house was one of the old 

 parsonages built in Queen Elizabeth's time, 

 having no cellar beneath. In June 1852 the 

 inmates were driven from their drawing-room 

 by a most evil and unaccountable smell. At 

 length it was supposed the nuisance must be 

 caused by some dead animal, and the car- 

 penter was sent for to take up the floor 

 boards when a living polecat was found com- 

 fortably ensconced underneath them. Mr. H. 

 Lingwood has a specimen from Bricett near 

 Bildeston obtained in 1847. In the neigh- 

 bourhood of Letheringham in east Suffolk it 

 was also not uncommon at that time, and 

 lingered until several years later. Polecats 

 inhabited Ubbeston Wood near Halesworth 

 (then unpreserved for game) within the 

 memory of the writer's father, who also 

 recollects seeing the mouths of their burrows 

 strewn with bones and feathers. This would 

 probably be from about 1824 to 1830 or 

 later. A gamekeeper informed Mr. C. 

 Whiting that while living at Crowfield about 

 2 J miles from Coddenham, between i860 

 and 1872, he caught about fourteen pole- 

 cats.* During the last two years of that 

 period only one or two were killed, and he 

 believes these animals to be now extinct in 

 that neighbourhood. 



16. Stoat. Putorius ermineus, Linn. 

 Bell — Mustela erminea. 

 In the neighbourhood of Tostock in west 

 Suffolk, the Rev. J. G. Tuck has often heard 

 the local name of 'miniver' used for this 

 animal. The Re v. E. T. Daubeny, too {Nature 

 Notes, October 1903, p. 213), in a list ot 

 local names in use in the neighbourhood of 

 Market Weston near Thetford, says : 'In 

 winter the stoat is a "minifer."' In the 

 eastern part of the county it is, or used 



' For this information I am indebted to Mr. H. 

 Miller of Ipswich. 



frequently to be, called the ' weasel,' while 

 the true weasel has another name given 

 it. No animal is more universally detested 

 by gamekeepers than this bold, determined 

 little marauder ; and its numbers have been 

 so much reduced by traps, guns and other 

 means, that it is far less common than it was 

 thirty years ago. In the game-preserving 

 districts of east Suffolk, one rarely gets a 

 chance now of watching the stoat hunting 

 along the side of a hedge or ditch, and ad- 

 miring the grace and elegance of his move- 

 ments as he comes bounding along, full of life 

 and animation, now and again raising himself 

 to his full height, in order to extend his 

 horizon. In spite of its bad reputation, this 

 animal is an excellent and accomplished rat- 

 catcher, and so atones for many of its misdeeds. 

 The advantage it possesses through its ability 

 to follow its prey into their holes, combined 

 with remarkable strength, agility and courage, 

 makes it a formidable foe to the rat. Stoats 

 haunt the banks of rivers and streams, especi- 

 ally where there are beds of reeds or osiers, 

 preying upon rats, water voles, waterhens, 

 etc. On the beach, sand hills and rough 

 ground between Sizewell and the Dunwich 

 clifls, where they were comparatively safe 

 from the keepers, both stoats and weasels used 

 to be fairly common. They also visit at times 

 the river * walls,' in pursuit of the rats and 

 moles which there do much damage ; but 

 even here their relentless enemy follows them, 

 setting baited traps for their destruction. The 

 stoat takes the water boldly, swimming very 

 fast, and with a good deal of its body above 

 the surface. Where rabbits abound, these 

 animals are soon attracted to the spot. Mr. 

 W. G. Clarke informs me that in the year 

 1893, 200 stoats were trapped upon Thetford 

 warren in six weeks. Up to the early part of 

 the last century, this animal must have been 

 very common. In the list of vermin killed 

 in a single year (181 1) by a gamekeeper in 

 Suffolk (quoted in the account given here of 

 the marten) the number of stoats destroyed is 

 416. Every winter, whether severe or other- 

 wise, a few white or rather nearly white 

 specimens find their way into the bird-stuffers' 

 shops, most of them retaining a few patches 

 of colour, especially round the eyes and along 

 the spine, the black tip of the tail being of 

 course always present. One in perfect winter 

 dress, killed in Suffolk, was exhibited by Dr. 

 Crisp at a meeting of the Zoological Society 

 in i860.' The extraordinary audacity so 

 characteristic of the weasel family is very 

 conspicuous in the stoat, who will sometimes 



Zoohffi/, i860, p. 6913. 



222 



