254 AUTUMN AND WINTER 



a good character. We were assured that they were in no 

 degree dangerous to the birds. The assurance, however, 

 had hardly been given, when one of the party saw a squirrel 

 with a sparrow in his mouth. This was taken as evidence 

 that the numbers had grown excessive, and that evening 

 orders were given for the destruction of some of them. It 

 will soon be necessary to reduce the number in Regent's 

 Park, where they are rapidly destroying all the nests of the 

 blackbirds and thrushes. The hedgehog, again, will eat 

 anything, from a young partridge to a seedling wallflower. 

 The badger has various tastes in the same manner. He 

 will kill a maimed or sleepy pheasant. He will even kill 

 and eat a young lamb. He will destroy eggs. But his 

 crimes are rare, as with the squirrel, and perhaps the hedge- 

 hog. The harm he does is always too small to give any 

 excuse for destruction. 



Among the animals which we call vermin, the most 

 noticeable quality is courage, deliberate courage, which, when 

 the beast flies, is expressed in control. The writer has seen 

 it, in remarkable instances, in both the stoat and weasel. 

 An attempt was made to bolt a stoat from a rabbit hole 

 which he had been seen to enter. Directly the ferret, a very 

 big albino, was put in the burrow, the stoat came to the 

 mouth of the hole, and looking round at a dangerous, if not 

 alarming company of men and dogs, retreated to face the 

 smaller risk inside. In the underground fight he won, and 

 drove back the ferret. The albino was then supported by 

 some polecat ferrets of perhaps greater courage if less bulk. 

 The stoat again came to the bolt-hole entrance, took a quite 

 calm look round, and again retreated ; but a quarter of a 

 minute later shot out of the hole straight to the very thickest 

 bunch of thorn outside, moving with such impetus that none 

 of the terriers, though they saw him come out, ever came 



