144 MANAGEMENT OF HOUNDS. 



together as one species. They differ both in size, colour, 

 and length of tail materially. I know only of one spe- 

 cies of stoat, but I have certainly seen more than one 

 species of weasel. The stoat is yellow on its back in 

 summer, and often white in winter, with a long body, 

 rather large ears, and a long tail, with a black tip at the 

 end, the throat and belly being a yellowish white. The 

 weasel, on the contrary, is not half the size of the stoat, 

 although in bodily shape resembling him. He is of a 

 brown colour on the back, his head more angular and 

 ears shorter than the stoat, stands shorter on the legs, 

 and has a short tail. There is one species of weasel so 

 small that it can easily follow mice in their holes ; and 

 one of these, not long since, I watched into a mouse's 

 hole in an open grass field. Seeing something hopping 

 along in the grass, which I took for a large, long-tailed 

 field mouse, I stood still, as it was approaching my posi- 

 tion, and when within a foot or two of the spot on which 

 1 was standing, so that I could have a full view of the 

 animal, a very small weasel appeared and quickly disap- 

 peared again in a tuft of grass. On searching the spot, 

 I discovered a mouse-hole, into which Mr. Weasel had 

 retreated. 



It should be borne in mind that, as the stoat lives 

 chiefly upon rabbits, game, and birds, and is a great 

 enemy therefore to the game-preserver, yet the^weasel, 

 preying upon rats and mice more particularly, is espe- 

 cially a friend to the farmer. An owl and a weasel in a 

 barn will kill more rats and mice than half-a-dozen cats ; 

 for, while the owl is watching and pouncing upon the 

 mice which appear above ground, the weasel is purs^iing 

 them below. 



