WEASEL 



a rustle among the herbage, and that is all. This is the 

 signal to wait and watch. Presently the gliding form of 

 the active little beast will be sighted, and many interviews 

 which we have had with it have been as a direct result of 

 exercising patience when undertaking our field excursions. 

 Often in the Spring, before home cares demand closer 

 attention to the five or six young, we have disturbed 

 both Stoats and Weasels bird-nesting. They show a 

 preference for the eggs of Blackbirds and Thrushes, and 

 will climb bushes and trees in search of same. Their 

 fondness for the eggs of ground-nesting birds, such as 

 the Partridge, Corncrake and Pheasant is also well known. 

 Mention has already been made of the way in which this 

 member of the Carnivora performs good work in preying 

 upon Rats, and it will also attack Voles, Moles and 

 Birds 



It has two or three litters during the year, and to see 

 a family party on the trail provides a most interesting 

 episode connected with wild life. The parents are most 

 solicitous for the welfare of their brood, but when 

 attacked show fight in no uncertain way. 



Besides hedgerows, the Weasel, as with the Stoat, 

 haunts woods, copses, plantations, large gardens, stacks, 

 farmyards and similar places. It is a typical four- 

 footed inhabitant of rural England, and, in spite of man 

 being its remorseless enemy, it manages to keep up its 

 numbers to an astonishing degree. 



Stoat. — Much that has been written of the Weasel 



applies equally well to the Stoat (Figs. 17 and 18). Like 



87 



