CURIOSITIES OF WILD LIFE. 83 



By this time I had forgotten all about the 

 dangers of ricochet bullets, and with trembling 

 haste excitedly pushed the lens of my camera 

 between two palings, focussed, put a plate in, 

 and fired off the focal plane shutter. But alas ! 

 hunter and quarry had now got so much hidden 

 amongst grass and nettles that there was small 

 room left to hope for a successful negative. This 

 induced me to leap over the fence and place the 

 rabbit (which was now quite dead) in an opener 

 and, consequently, more favourable position for 

 my purpose. The stoat retired under pressure 

 beneath some stunted blackthorn bushes, but 

 reappeared again directly I got my apparatus 

 ready ; and quiet, save for the intermittent crackle 

 of rifles six or seven hundred yards away, was 

 restored. Following a rabbits' track which ran 

 parallel with the fence, he came and peeped im- 

 pudently between two bark-clad slats at me, 

 as I knelt beside my 

 camera, and, quickly 

 making up his mind 

 that I was nothing of 

 a very dangerous cha- 

 racter, bounded away 

 in search of his prey. 



I had taken the 

 precaution to drag 



the rabbit along the STOAT AND RABBIT. 



