CHAPTER XXXIX 



Squirrels And Stoats A tree-climbing Stoat Foresters' friends Sure- 

 footed animals Weasel superstitions Fairies A mouse-hunt Stoat 

 and Vole Stoat's larder Eels in winter An amphibious cat. 



THE Squirrel (Y Gwiwer in Cymric) is numerous, and will 

 probably become more so as the new plantations grow up 

 round Llanuwchllyn, for, of all trees, conifers are most 

 preferred by it whether for food or shelter. It may not be 

 generally known that the Stoat is one of the best natural 

 checks we have upon the undue increase of the Squirrel ; 

 and it is not unlikely that the disappearance of the one 

 animal, before the traps of the game-preserver, may have 

 some bearing upon the marked increase which has taken 

 place in the numbers of the other in so many parts of the 

 country. There was a young plantation of pines, and firs, 

 here, of perhaps ten or fifteen years' growth, in which every 

 Squirrel's drey was raided, and the Squirrels practically 

 driven from it, altogether, I believe, through the exertions 

 of a single Stoat that had taken to a semi-arboreal habit. 

 Naturally, the nests of small birds also suffered from its 

 climbing propensities ; but that was a matter which a forester, 

 at any rate, would have willingly overlooked in return for 

 the destruction of one of the worst enemies of his coniferous 

 timber. Similar experience is not wanting elsewhere ; and 

 where timber, rather than game, is the main end in view, a 

 Stoat is deserving of more consideration than it usually 

 receives. In olden days, a Marten might, no doubt, have 

 been a yet more effective agent for the keeping down of the 

 rodents ; but now a Marten is not only almost out of the 

 question, owing to its rarity, but is practically unobtainable. 

 Of course, as the trees grow larger, the Squirrels will find 

 greater security from an enemy, whose natural sphere is 



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