A HISTORY OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE 



of noting the point, that the amount of white 

 in the summer coat increases with age, and 

 by inference that the majority of individuals 

 in this and other southern counties which 

 turn more or less completely white in winter 

 are fairly old animals (not necessarily of ex- 

 treme age). In some cases in the summer 

 coat the white on the hind feet is limited to 

 one or two hairs, while on the fore feet merely 

 the three inner toes are more or less white, 

 and the two outer toes have only one or two 

 white hairs on them. On the other hand 

 some summer specimens have all four feet 

 completely white, the white extending up so 

 as to be continuous with that on the under 

 side of the body, which also varies in breadth; 

 and there are all intermediate variations. 

 A female trapped at Ibstone on 13 March 

 1901 contained five foetuses, three in the 

 right horn of the uterus, and two in the left, 

 about the size of castor oil beans (or the 

 largest pea, or small nut), making it probable 

 that she was about a fortnight gone in preg- 

 nancy. If therefore, as is likely, though quite 

 unknown, the gestation of this species is 

 about forty days, these young would have 

 been born about 8 April. The average date 

 for the birth of stoats is probably a little later 

 than this. In captivity stoats starve sooner 

 than eat ' pluck ' even perfectly fresh livers, 

 hearts, etc., of rabbits or poultry, but must 

 be fed exclusively on the flesh of birds or 

 small animals ; rabbits by preference ! It is 

 astonishing to see, when a heavy fall of snow 

 facilitates tracking, the amount of ground a 

 stoat will cover ; and when rabbits are scarce, 

 the great number of holes a stoat will descend 

 in quest of a supper. In summer stoats 

 often frequent the banks of small rivers, or 

 ditches, in pursuit of water-voles. They are 

 good climbers, sometimes ascending trees to 

 a height of 30 feet or so, and are quite adept 

 at birds' nesting in tall hedges. They have 

 much larger feet in proportion to their size 

 than either polecats or weasels, and like 

 martens are to a great extent plantigrade. I 

 have a race of hybrids between stoat and 

 ferret and now descended to the fourth 

 generation of hybrid bred with hybrid. In- 

 stances of weasels being caught in traps set 

 for moles in the runs of the latter are com- 

 mon, but it seems worth recording the cap- 

 ture of a stoat under these circumstances on 



17. Weasel. Putorius niva/is, Linn. 



Bell Mustela vulgans. 



Probably everywhere in Bucks, as else- 

 where in the southern three-quarters of Great 

 Britain, the weasel is more numerous than 

 the stoat ; very much thinned down where 

 game has been systematically preserved over a 

 fairly large area for any length of time, but 

 still fairly numerous where there are districts 

 less strictly trapped, and in some places quite 

 common. Among animals whose dietary 

 presents no special difficulty, weasels are per- 

 haps the hardest to keep alive for any length 

 of time in captivity, from their excitability. 

 No animal gets tame up to a certain point 

 so quickly as the general run of weasels, and 

 yet at any subsequent time any disturbance 

 may cause sudden death, apparently by some- 

 thing akin to apoplexy. While admittedly 

 mischievous to the young of game birds and 

 to rabbits, yet to farmers, gardeners, horticul- 

 turists and foresters, weasels are the greatest 

 possible benefactors. Like kestrels and the 

 owls among birds, their chief food supplies 

 are drawn from the hosts of mice and small 

 voles which work such an incalculable amount 

 of mischief to the vegetable world. The 

 committee appointed by the Board of Agri- 

 culture in 1892 to inquire into the plague ot 

 field voles in Scotland, recommended that 

 weasels should be tolerated, as from their small 

 size, the destruction they wreak on game is 

 slight, while the good they effect by checking 

 the numbers of the smaller rodents is very great 

 and certain. 1 Weasels are hardly such expert 

 climbers as stoats, which may be accounted 

 for by their shorter legs and relatively much 

 smaller sized feet, and being more digitigrade 

 than the latter. They have not the aquatic 

 habits of the stoat. A sign of their uncon- 

 trollable excitability is shown in a state of 

 freedom by the readiness with which they can 

 sometimes be drawn from a hiding place by 

 making a sharp chirping or squeaking noise ; 

 and in captivity by the extraordinary boldness 

 with which after a very few days they come 

 out and show themselves, so different to the 

 behaviour of any other wild animal with 

 which I am acquainted. There are excep- 

 tions even to this rule ; I have had one 

 weasel, and one only, that declined to show 

 itself until it had been caged for a good many 

 weeks. I have been told since I came to 



my land at Poynetts in Hambleden parish on jj ye at mv p resent home in Hambleden parish, 



29 February 1904. It was caught without 



1 At least one large landowner (Lord Barnard 

 at Raby Castle, Durham) in a printed Memorandum 

 of Instructions to Gamekeepers, etc., has : ' Where 

 rats, mice, voles, etc., are numerous, Weasels should 

 be preserved.' 



injury by the neck and I have it alive at the 

 time this is passing through the press. 



[The Irish Stoat, Putorius hibernicus, is 

 confined to the country it is named after.] 



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