84 THE WEASEL AND THE STOAT (THE ERMINE). 



bearing little fighter, and will give him a wide 

 margin every time in preference to disputing the 

 right-of-way. The weasel is quite impartial as 

 to whom he attacks, having been known to kill 

 calves, lambs, and even foals, the first named, it 

 is said, by suffocating them. 



MIGRATION. 



Like all other members of his family, the weasel 

 is of wandering habits, and the covert which yester- 

 day contained no stoats or weasels may to-morrow 

 be overrun by them. In the autumn their migra- 

 tory instincts seem to be at their strongest, and 

 at this season they are most commonly seen by 

 roadfarers, darting across the open road and 

 bounding down the hedgerows. These wanderings 

 are quite unaccountable, as the animals do not 

 migrate, for example, from the high, bleak hill- 

 tops to the sheltered valleys, but remain evenly 

 distributed. One merely takes over the hunting- 

 range of another, a general shuffling and sorting- 

 out taking place. 



Stoats and weasels very often travel in families, 

 eight or nine of them keeping together, working 

 and hunting in unison like a pack of hounds. 

 Sometimes in wild country family joins family, 

 till an immense gathering of them is formed 

 travelling east or west, and leaving an area of 

 devastation behind them. An army of weasels 

 will turn aside for practically nothing, even the 

 shepherd and his dog being unsafe should they 

 encounter it. There are many cases on record 

 of such an army having attacked men, and no more 

 uncomfortable predicament could be imagined. 



A Yorkshire shepherd with whom I was well 

 acquainted was one day walking the moors, when 



