12 ON SURREY HILLS. 



started in the hedge, but the kill will almost invari- 

 ably take place in the middle of the road. "A fair 

 field and no favour" is their motto. The mouse, rat, 

 or rabbit, as soon as it is startled, quits the hedge- 

 bottom, and makes tracks for the open. If the 

 quarry be a rat or a mouse, it is dragged back to the 

 cover of the hedge again, as is the case, too, if it be 

 a young rabbit ; but a full-grown rabbit will be left 

 lying in the road where his enemy has killed him 

 and sucked his blood, for the first passer-by to pick 

 up and take home. These animals killed by the 

 stoats or the polecats are fully appreciated by the 

 country folks who find them. For perfect impudence 

 what creature can surpass the little weasel, as he 

 stands in. the middle of the road and takes stock of 

 you with a mouse in his mouth ? As to the stoat, he 

 will, if the farmer permit, make his home in an old 

 fagot-stack, and there bring up his family of stoat 

 kittens, most carefully provided for by mother stoat 

 and himself with stolen delicacies the lot frisking 

 about in a most barefaced manner, like a pack of 

 harlequins. The numbers of rats, mice, and frogs 

 disposed of in the course of a single year must be 

 great indeed. But when the kittens begin to eat 



