104 WILD SPORTS OF THE HIGHLANDS. [CHAP. xm. 



On picking it up, however, I found that it was a young weasel, 

 unable to run, which its mother was endeavouring to carry to a 

 place of safety, her former hole in an adjoining field having been 

 ploughed over. I cannot express my regret at the fate of this 

 poor creature, when I saw that her death was caused wholly by 

 her maternal affection. Notwithstanding the havoc which these 

 animals make among my rabbits, nothing would have induced 

 me to molest her, had I known what she was carrying. 



The track of the stoat is very like that of a young rabbit, and 

 may be easily mistaken for it. They travel over an amazing 

 extent of ground in their nocturnal rambles, as their marks in 

 the snow can testify. The edges of rivers and brooks seem their 

 favourite hunting-places. By some means or other they manage 

 to catch eels. I tracked a stoat from the edge of a ditch to its 

 own hole, at the distance of several hundred yards. He had 

 been carrying some heavy body, as I could plainly see by the 

 marks in the snow ; and this, on digging out the hole, I found 

 to be an eel about nine inches long. No bait is better for all 

 kinds of the weasel tribe than fish, which they seem to have a 

 great liking for, and evidently feed upon whenever they inhabit 

 a neighbourhood where they can procure them. 



The polecat is now comparatively rare in this country, in con- 

 sequence of the number of gamekeepers and vermin-trappers : 

 they still, however, frequent the banks of the river, where they 

 take shelter among the loose stones and rocks. There is no dif- 

 ference in appearance between the polecat and the brown ferret, 

 who also partakes very frequently of the shyness of his wild 

 relative, being much more apt to become cross-tempered and 

 ready to return to a state of nature than the tamer white ferret. 

 The polecat is extremely destructive nothing comes amiss to it. 

 I found in the hole of a she polecat, besides her young ones, 

 three kittens that had been drowned at the distance of at least 

 a quarter of a mile. Besides these, her larder contained the re- 

 mains of hares, rabbits, and of an infinity of birds and several eels. 



There was a wood-pigeon that had young ones nearly full- 

 grown in an ivy-covered tree close to the window of my dressing- 

 room. One morning I saw the old birds flying about in distress, 

 but I could see no hawk or bird of prey about. Presently down 

 fell one of the young birds, and in a moment afterwards the 



