PERSEVEKA^X•E OF STOAT AFTER ITS TREY, 283 



permits its intended prey to escape. Altliongh tole- 

 rably swift of foot, it is entirely unable to cope with 

 the great speed of the hare, an animal which fi-equently 

 falls a victim to the stoat ; yet it is enabled by its great 

 delicacy of scent and the singular contrivance of its 

 frame, to run down any hare on whose track it may 

 have set itself. When pursued by a stoat the hare* 

 does not seem to put forward its strength as it does 

 when it is followed b}^ dogs, but as soon as it discovers the 

 nature of its pursuer it seems to lose all energy and hops 

 lazily along as if its faculties were benumbed by some 

 powerful agency. This great lassitude is of essential 

 service to the stoat in enabling it to secure an animal 

 which might, in a very few minutes, place itself beyond 

 the reach of danger by running in a straight line. To 

 account for this is, I conceive, extremely diflficult, for it 

 seems that when the hare once ascertains the persevering 

 enemy that piursues him, he is deprived of that speed and 

 exertion which he displays when hunted by harriers or 

 coursed by greyhounds ; it is a sort of fascination or 

 terror, with which birds are sometimes seized when a 

 cat steadfastly fixes his eyes on his intended victim, and 

 he remains motionless on the bough until captured 

 and devoured. The stoat is an excellent swimmer, 

 which is proved by what has been related by Mr. 

 Thompson. " A respectable farmer, when crossing in 

 his boat an arm of the sea, about one mile in breadth 

 which separates a portion of Islandmagee (a peninsula 

 near Larne, county Antrim) from the mainland, ob- 

 served a ripple proceeding from some animal in the 

 water, and upon rowing up found it was a 'weasel,' 



* This I have stated ■n-hen wTiting about hares. 



