240 Poachers and Poaching. 



various subtle engines of his own machination 

 To-day the martin is rare ; soon it will be 

 extinct altogether. Weasels do much less harm. 

 They are the smallest of our carnivorous animals, 

 and will probably long survive. They fre- 

 quently abound where least suspected, in the 

 cultivated as well as the wildest parts of 

 the district. They take up their abode near 

 farmhouses, in decayed outbuildings, hay-ricks, 

 and disused quarries ; and may often be seen 

 near old walls or running along the top of 

 them with a mouse or bird in their mouths. 

 These things form the staple of their food ; but 

 there is no denying that a weasel will occasion- 

 ally run down the strongest hare, and that 

 rabbits, from their habit of rushing into their 

 burrows become an easy prey. But this does not 

 happen often, I believe. To rats the weasel is a 

 deadly enemy ; no united number of them will 

 attack it, and the largest singly has no chance 

 against it. Like the polecat the weasel hunts 

 by scent. It climbs trees easily and takes birds 

 by stealth. The keeper has seen a brooding 

 partridge taken in this manner, and on winter 

 evenings the sparrows roosting in holes in a 

 hay-rick. Weasels also kill toads and frogs ; 

 and their mode of killing these, as well as of 

 despatching birds, is by piercing the skull. 



The polecat, or fitchet, keeps much to the 

 woods, and feeds mostly on rabbits and game. 



