British Wild Beasts. 187 



But the great majority accept only the sinister, dismal, 

 and unhappy aspects of the hare. It goes " limping " in 

 Grahame, Keats, Thomson, Burns, and others, as if limp- 

 ing were a feature of a woe-begone, mendicant sort of 

 existence, and not its natural gait, when at ease in its mind 

 and quite happy. " The hare hmped trembling," " the 

 fearful hare limped awkward," " the limping hare stops, and 

 looks back, and stops and looks on man, his deadliest foe." 

 As a matter of fact, of course, the hare's " limp " is merely 

 its loitering pace, and expressive of poor Watts' only too 

 infrequent tranquillity. 



Associated with the hare and rabbit, but in a very 

 disagreeable manner for those animals, are the " thin " 

 weasels, and their relatives the ferrets — 



" In Shetland's grassy holms, the mining tribe 

 Skulking, is there well pleased to dwell obscure, 

 Regardless they of what loud bustling men 

 Concert in clamorous camp or palace high ; 

 But what avails their unambitious care. 

 If the fierce ferret spies the vaulted cell 

 And rushes headlong in to seize his piey ? 

 At once the subterraneous state alarmed, 

 Shrieks out all over — whither shall they fly ? 

 Caught in their inmost chambers, where they slept 

 Vainly secure. The assassin fierj'-eyed 

 Winding up all their mazes, through and through 

 Spreads desolation o'er the feeble race." — Leyden. 



Not only in the land of Shakspeare's " weasel-Scot," but 

 in England, the ferret may still be found wild ; but Scot- 

 land alone can now boast of the larger marten. 



The "sucke-egg^ weasele" (Quarles), " night- wandering 

 weasel " (Shakespeare), " wicked " weasel, finds barely a 

 dozen references in all the range of poetry, though to the 



^ " I can suck melancholy out of a song, as a weasel sucks eggs." — 

 As You Like It. 



