POLECAT, STOAT, WEASEL, HEDGEHOG. 109 



Some gentlemen think the larger hawks kill 

 numbers of polecats. This is setting a thief 

 to catch a thief. We would save these amateur 

 policemen their trouble by having scarcely any 

 for them to catch, though a few will always come 

 into a country every year, and always by the 

 same passes. A trap set in certain passes will 

 produce its annual polecat almost as regularly 

 as a tree bears its fruit. 



When innocent and happy creatures are 

 protected, and are tolerably numerous, these 

 animals crowd to the feast from the regions 

 where they live and breed, and which they have 

 nearly cleared of animal life. 



Catch them as you will, the cry is ' still they 

 come.' A gentleman not many years ago pur- 

 chased a large Highland property upon which 

 Nature had certainly established her own balance, 

 for man had not interfered within the memory 

 of men. Eleven out of the first twelve traps his 

 keepers put down were actually tenanted the 

 next morning by one or other of these creatures. 



