DECEMBER 227 



securely fenced (which would be the chief difficulty and 

 expense), would require to be regularly fed with rabbits 

 and blue hares, but would need little other attention, 

 till they had multiplied sufficiently to be killed and 

 skinned ; and the enterprise might turn out in the end 

 to be an exceedingly lucrative one. 



LXXXV 



The misdeeds of the stoat have damaged the char- 

 acter of its relative, the weasel, and it would be vain to 

 try and persuade the average gamekeeper stoats and 

 that this active little animal is, in truth, far weasels 

 more beneficial than hurtful. Warm were the praises, 

 in a small northern town well known to me, bestowed 

 upon a cat for destroying a weasel which entered a 

 house one night last month (1895). It does not appear 

 that it occurred to anybody to speculate what business 

 the weasel was after in the dwelling-house. Bad as is 

 its reputation, it can hardly have been suspected of 

 designs upon the inmates, or the tea-spoons, or the 

 contents of the till. No ; the weasel came for precisely 

 the same reason that set Greymalkin on the prowl. It 

 was after mice; for mice, rats, and young rabbits are 

 the staple diet of this fine little beast of prey. Un- 

 luckily, nine people out of ten confound weasels with 

 stoats. A hen-pheasant killed on her nest, or a pullet 

 sucked to death is set down as readily to the account 

 of one of the Mustelidse as to that of another. Besides 

 the greater size of the stoat, it is easily distinguished 

 from the weasel by the black brush at the end of the 



