FEB. STOATS OTTERS. 179 



up the young wheat in great quantities with their 

 strong bills. The stoats are now pure white in 

 almost every instance, although I shot one on 

 the 3d of this month who had only very partially 

 acquired his winter colour. My rabbit beagles ran 

 him for a long time full cry on some rough ground. 

 Whenever the stoat went into a rabbit -hole I 

 turned him out again with a ferret, in this way 

 running him till I killed him. 



While the river is in this state of confusion 

 with ice, etc., I see that the otters take themselves 

 to the unfrozen ditches and springs to hunt for eels 

 and flounders, which fish they feed on apparently 

 with great perseverance, if one can judge by the 

 distance they hunt for them in the snow. The 

 otter, judging from the ground he goes over, must 

 commence moving as soon as it is dark, and con- 

 tinue his hunting till nearly daylight. 



Notwithstanding the shyness of the otter, this 

 animal is very determined in the defence of its 

 young ones, and boldly confronts a person who 

 takes one of them up. My keeper tells me that he 

 has seen an old otter feeding her young with fish : 

 the two young ones were sitting on a flat stone at 

 the edge of the burn when their parent brought 

 them a good-sized trout. They immediately both 

 seized the fish, pulling and tearing at it like two 



