THE WEASEL. 301 



vermin seem to constitute its general food ; and 

 we must allow that it arrests their increase, by an 

 activity and perseverance truly astonishing. It 

 hunts for the beetle in the grass; it follows the 

 mole through her subterraneous mazes; it drives 

 the rats from the bottom of haystacks, and worries 

 them in the corn-ricks, and never allows them 

 either peace or quiet in the sewers and ditches where 

 they take up their abode. That man only, who has 

 seen a weasel go into a corn-stack, can form a just 

 idea of the horror which its approach causes to the 

 Hanoverians collected there for safety and plunder. 

 The whole stack is in commotion whilst these 

 destroyers of corn seem to be put to their last shifts, 

 if you may judge by the extraordinary kind of 

 whining which goes on amongst them, and by the 

 attempts which they make to bolt from the invaded 

 premises. No Irishman ever shunned the hated pre- 

 sence of Dutch William in the Emerald Isle with 

 greater marks of horror than those which rats betray 

 when a weasel comes unexpectedly amongst them. 

 One only regrets that this stranger rat did not meet 

 a hungry weasel on its first landing in our country ; 

 for, although the indigenous English black rat was 

 known to be far too fond of self, still it was by no 

 means so fierce and rapacious as the German new 

 comer at least, I have always heard my father say 

 so ; but I cannot state any thing from actual ex- 

 perience, as the old English rat has entirely dis- 

 appeared from these parts. 



But, of all people in the land, our gardeners have 

 most reason to protect the weasel. They have not 



