Ground Vermin The Polecat. 219 



to the particular burrow, hole, or nook chosen as its sleeping 

 place does it convey a great part of the number of its 

 victims, and by dint of search, one may often discover -the 

 tracks pointing to its misdeeds and so take steps for the 

 capture of the marauder. 



When the polecats, for the purpose of seeking food or to 

 gratify their rapacious instinct, leave their habitation, they 

 prefer to quit it at one extremity, and should it be a wood or 

 plantation, of the nature described above, in which they have 

 taken their residence, they will nearly always emerge from it 

 at the highest side, and when it does not form a corner at one 

 end or the other of it, they will make, according to circum- 

 stances, for the nearest rabbit burrow, and, if possible, one 

 situated in a hedge or bank. Having made the run of it, and, 

 perhaps but unlikely stopped to kill a rabbit and suck a 

 small quantity of blood, they come out on the side nearest 

 the plantation, and, running along the ground, turn off at the 

 first gap ; should there be at this spot a gateway, they are 

 sure to stop and rub themselves against the bars and posts of 

 the gate, offering, as may readily be seen, a suitable and 

 most favourable spot for the placing of a trap or two, of 

 which more anon. 



It is always a very difficult matter to become acquainted 

 with the many signs and small apparently ordinary 

 occurrences which may point to the depredations of polecats, 

 but, as far as can be explained by writing, we will endeavour 

 to point some of them out. In the first place, the only 

 undoubted evidence that any bird or animal found killed has 

 met its death at the instance of a fitch is that the vermin 

 always destroys life, whether it be of game, rabbits, wild 



