228 A MEMORABLE GALE 



tail, which is wholly wanting in the smaller animal. 

 The shepherds of Ettrick and Eskdale bore willing 

 testimony before the Vole Plague Committee to the 

 good service done by the weasels ' whittrets,' as they 

 call them, i.e. white-throats among the swarming 

 voles. 



It is a pretty sight to watch a brood of young stoats 

 at play on a summer evening. The grace and swiftness 

 of their movements remind one of fish rather than 

 four-footed creatures ; then, when they take alarm, off 

 go the parents, with seven or eight young ones so close 

 in their wake, jumping sideways over each others' 

 backs, that the whole procession looks like a single 

 animal threading its way through the herbage. 



LXXXVI 



The storm which blew in the early morning of 

 December 23, 1894, was probably the most severe while 

 A Memorable ^ lasted of any that have visited the west 

 Gale coast in living memory. Nobody who 

 viewed our district can forget the desolation revealed 

 by daylight. We did not lose so many trees, indeed, as 

 in the great storm of December 1882, because we had 

 not so many to lose. In that year the loss on Monreith 

 estate came to about 25,000 trees (the Duke of 

 Buccleuch reckoned his loss at 1,200,000); we after- 

 wards counted about 7000 trees blown out by this latter 

 storm. But the general damage done was far more 

 appalling; my bill for re-roofing farmhouses stripped 

 of their slates came to more than 800. The lakes 



