The White Stoats. 119 



measure above forty inches, the Pine Marten thirty inches, 

 and the Stone or Beach Marten about twenty-five inches ; 

 while the three lower representative types of Mustela, 

 Fitchet, Stoat, and Common Weasel, are of the respective 

 lengths of twenty, fifteen, and ten inches. There is yet 

 another odd circumstance connected with this graduation 

 of length, each species doubling on the next above and 

 below, so as to make certain lengths of the chain, as it 

 were, duplicate. In other words, the male Weasel is often 

 as large, or even larger, than the female Stoat ; the male 

 Stoat in turn running up to the dimension of the female 

 Fitchet, with a like proportion throughout the series of 

 six ! The graduation, however, as observed in the three 

 smaller species, is more strikingly curious from their 

 closer resemblance to one another. I have a collection 

 of these before me of every possible size, from the little 

 she Weasel of less than nine inches long, to the he Polecat 

 (Fitchet) of over twenty inches. But all with such family 

 resemblance, alike vicious in look, that one might easily 

 imagine them members of the same family, only of differ- 

 ent ages. 



THE WHITE STOATS. 



In a number of the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic 

 News I gave an account of two White Stoats taken in the 

 parish of Flaxley, Gloucestershire, near the Forest of 

 Dean boundary. One of them, or rather its skin stuffed 

 and mounted, is in my possession; and I find that in 

 describing them as white all over, save the tips of the 

 tail, I made a mistake at least about this one. Hurried 



