THE FAERY YEAR 



stoat does in its hunting. The slyness and the 

 blood-thirst of the stoat are absent from one's idea 

 of the hawk. Watch the stoat working the honey- 

 combed banks of a stream in pursuit of voles, and 

 you will notice that it is quite at home in the water. 

 It swims with ease. Whether it often successfully 

 follows the vole into the water I doubt. Yet in the 

 burning pursuit of prey the stoat will certainly ven- 

 ture under water. The water-keeper has found out 

 that the small jack of his trout stream are in the 

 habit of going up a ditch into some pipes laid under- 

 ground for a few yards here and there. So he sets 

 in these spots a wire-meshed trap, somewhat similar 

 in design to an eel-trap. The other day, examin- 

 ing one of these traps, he found a drowned water 

 vole and stoat in it. The vole had fled up the 

 drain into the trap, pursued by the stoat, and both 

 were drowned. It was cruel fortune for the vole to 

 lose its life thus. Had it plunged into one of the 

 neighbouring drains, in which there was no trap, it 

 might have escaped, and even drowned its terrible 

 pursuer into the bargain ; though, if Blomfield's 

 information were correct, the stoat will sometimes 

 take eels under water a statement I have never 

 been able quite to accept. Anyhow, this water vole 

 died rare game. It reminds one of the tremendous 

 scene of the dogging of Bradley Headstone by 

 Rogue Riderhood. There is one way out of the 

 ravening pursuit. Headstone takes Riderhood 

 down with him between the lock gates, a grave from 

 which there is no arising, and they perish together. 

 14 



