WEASEL KILLING A HARE. 63 



Of British quadrupeds perhaps of all existing quadrupeds 

 the pluckiest, and, according to its size and weight, by far the 

 strongest, is the common weasel (Mustela vulgaris). The other 

 day a man in our neighbourhood brought us a common brown hare, 

 large and in excellent condition, that had been hunted and killed 

 by a weasel in a very extraordinary manner. In the evening the 

 man was going up a green glade on the wooded hill-side in search 

 of his cows, when he heard what he took to be the screaming of a 

 child on the other side of a small hazel copse which he was passing 

 at the moment. Supposing it to be a child searching for cows like 

 himself, that had fallen and hurt itself, or that had perhaps been 

 attacked by some stirk or quey, angry at being disturbed in a 

 favourite bit of grazing ground, he ran forward, and hearing the 

 screaming repeated, was astonished to find that it proceeded from 

 a hare that toilsomely and with staggering steps was struggling up 

 the steep. On closer inspection, about which there was no difficulty, 

 for by this time the poor hare was, in race-course phrase, about 

 " pumped out," and could barely stagger along, he was more than 

 astonished to observe that a weasel was extended couchant along 

 the hare's back, with his muzzle deeply sunk into the vertebrae of 

 his victim's neck, a position from which no exertion on the hare's 

 part could possibly dislodge him. Picking up a stone, the man 

 rushed forward and threw it with all his might, not so much at the 

 hare as at its lithe and blood-thirsty rider. The hare, however, 

 was hit, and fell, and with a gasp or two was dead ; less from the 

 blow than from the terrible injuries inflicted by the weasel's teeth, 

 from which, under any circumstances, it was impossible that the 

 poor animal could have recovered. Before the man and a dog 

 which accompanied him could get at the wary weasel, it had with 

 proverbial agility made good its escape. On examining the hare, 

 we found that it was in truth dreadfully wounded, the ruthless 

 Mitstela having manifestly gone to work in a very scientific manner, 



