568 THE ROLL OF THE SEASONS 



his head out left. Then a fourth in a new direction, 

 and for a few minutes the little bush was alive with 

 baby weasels, playing an undoubted game of hide- 

 and-seek. 



We have often wondered what would have happened 

 if we had managed to seize one of that playful family. 

 A number of recorded cases make it fairly certain that, 

 at its shrill chatter of rage and fright, the whole clan 

 would have attacked the enemy, running up his huge 

 limbs, and seeking to do him most vital damage about 

 his throat. A man might laugh at such an attack, 

 but a child would do well to drop his captive, and 

 make off at the top of his speed. No rat has that 

 family instinct. The mother rat will rush on death 

 in defence of her young so will almost any warm- 

 blooded mother but there is no other British animal 

 that has the character for tribal fealty that belongs to 

 the stoat and the weasel. In his little lion-coloured 

 body the weasel has more than the lion's tenacity of 

 purpose. You can drive him from the rabbit he has 

 killed, and, while his blood is up, he will come again 

 and again to carry it off. Sometimes, while you pull 

 at one end, he will pull at the other, bracing his tiny 

 legs against your tyrannic strength, and muttering 

 through his clenched teeth the maxims of fair-play 

 that you are violating. So, wherever we can afford it, 

 we will let our valiant little lion of the mowing-grass 

 go his own way. At any rate, we will not kill him on 

 a glorious summer day while he is fending for his 

 young family. 



