Ground Vermin The Polecat. 221 



it while sucking the blood at any rate, an odour of the fitch's 

 fetor will, should these surmises be correct, probably be present, 

 and this will of course leave little doubt as to the perpetrator 

 of the offence. -Poultry are generally served in this manner, 

 and often lie about indiscriminately and with their feathers 

 ruffled, wet, and dirty. Rabbits the foumart mostly destroys 

 in their burrows, and generally leaves them dead inside, a foot 

 or so from the mouth of the hole ; it rarely, however, kills 

 more than one at a time, and will return to the same holt 

 after sufficient time has elapsed for the rabbits to have quieted 

 themselves down again in their old retreat. Partridges we 

 have mentioned before, and a covey sometimes loses three or 

 four of its members in a single night. Pheasants the polecat 

 obtains when they sit at night on trees, and it will often 

 steal upon the sitting hen and kill her on her nest ; the eggs, 

 however, it will not molest ; hence, if the bird should be 

 warned in time by the excitement of the small birds in her 

 neighbourhood, who may have detected the vermin, she has 

 at least a chance of escaping. The way hares fall victims we 

 have already indicated. 



With regard to the manner in which they contrive to catch 

 fish very little is known, and as the instances of such 

 occurrences are rare, not much opportunity is afforded for 

 observation. Eels are, however, either most alluring or else 

 easiest of capture, and it would be a matter of great interest 

 to ascertain in what way the polecat accomplishes their 

 seizure presumably in much the same manner as the otter, 

 only it is evident that greater stealth is necessary with the 

 former than the latter, because, while the otter is only 

 working in its natural state for the capture of fish, &c., the 



