384 THE GAME PRESERVER'S GUIDE. 



especially when excited, and hence his name of foulmart. 

 Even his hole may readily be detected by the scent which it 

 emits. It is generally made in a sandy bank, and often 

 under the roots of an elm or ash, standing in a hedgerow, so 

 that the keeper, when he has found it, has some trouble in 

 digging him out. The polecat is only abroad by night, and is 

 very apt to shift his quarters, so that, however clear a pre- 

 serve may be at any season of the year, it is never safe from 

 the invasion of these animals. The poultry-yard attracts 

 this marauder, though many a chicken taken by him is set 

 down to the fox, farmers having an idea, from his likeness 

 to the ferret, that the rats of their wheat ricks are the 

 means of bringing him there, whereas, though no doubt the 

 polecat would destroy them if he could, he is too bulky to 

 follow them into their holes. The eggs of game and poultry 

 are also greedily sucked by the polecat. 



THE STOAT (Mustela, erminea). 



The stoat is intermediate in size between the polecat and 

 the true weasel presently to be described, from which it 

 may readily be distinguished by its bushy black tail. In 

 the engraving opposite this page the stoat is represented in 

 its full winter coat, which it frequently does not assume in 

 this country, long and severe cold being necessary to produce 

 the total change of colour from red to white. The black tip 

 to the tail is never lost, even when the white is as pure as 

 in the foreign skins known as ermine. In England, patches 

 of white to a greater or less extent are generally met with, 

 and in severe winters the stoat is seldom found without 

 more or less indications of the change; indeed, in the north 

 a full white colour is the rule rather than the exception. 

 The summer garb is a reddish brown, the belly being white 

 and the tail tipped with black. The stoat is even more 

 voracious in proportion to its size than the polecat, but, 

 being unable to hold the rabbit or the hare when full of 

 strength, it hunts them down till they are wearied with 

 muscular exertion and mental distress. At last it fastens 

 on the poor frightened and doomed animal, and sucks the 

 life-blood from a wound in the neck, the poor creature some- 



