26 The Gamekeeper at Home. 



The old wooden mole-trap is now almost extinct, 

 superseded by the modern iron one, which anybody- 

 can set up. The ancient contrivance, a cylinder of 

 wood, could only be placed in position by a practised 

 hand, and from his experience in this the mole- 

 catcher— locally called ' oont-catcher ' — used to be an 

 important personage in his way. He is now fast 

 becoming extinct also — that is, as a distinct handi- 

 craftsman spending his whole time in such trapping. 

 He was not unfrequently a man who had once occu- 

 pied a subordinate place under a keeper, and when 

 grown too feeble for harder labour, supported himself 

 in this manner : contracting with the farmers to clear 

 their fields by the season. 



Neither stoats' nor weasels' skins are preserved, 

 except now and then for stuffing to put under a glass 

 case, though the stoat is closely allied to the genuine 

 ermine. Polecats, too, are sometimes saved for the 

 same purpose ; in many woods they seem now quite 

 extinct. The otter skin is valuable, but does not 

 often come under the care of the keeper's wife. The 

 keeper now and then shoots a grebe in the mere 

 where the streamlet widens out into a small lake, 

 which again is bordered by water-meadows. This 

 bird is uncommon, but not altogether rare; some- 

 times two or three are killed in the year in this 



