54 CARNIVORA 



species, but I have met with it in the low country as well 

 as on the hills, and in the plantations as well as in the 

 open. When ferreting Eabbits on the wooded banks of the 

 Esk above Penicuik, I have several times seen a Stoat bolt 

 before the Ferret ; and in the spring of 1888, while resting 

 by the side of a fir plantation at Loganlee in the Pentlands, 

 where numbers are trapped every season, I watched one climb- 

 ing the trees and jumping from bough to bough almost as 

 nimbly as a Squirrel. When pursued it leapt to the ground 

 from a height of nearly ten feet, preferring evidently to make 

 its escape on terra firma. The speed at which a Stoat can 

 move along on the ground is astonishing. 



During the winter months numbers are received by the 

 Edinburgh taxidermists for preservation. They are then in 

 the white or ermine state. Of between twenty and thirty 

 examined by me during the winter 1890-91, only two 

 or three obtained near Lauder and Gorebridge in the end 

 of January and February had changed colour completely ; 

 all the others were more or less brown on the upper part of 

 the head and neck, and many of them had also a dorsal line 

 of the same colour, but much paler, owing to a large 

 admixture of white hairs. By 26th March specimens in 

 perfect summer dress began to come in. 



