THE WEASEL AND THE STOAT (THE ERMINE). 93 



If one can succeed in shooting one member 

 of a family of these little killers, the extermina- 

 tion of the rest is merely a matter of patience, 

 for weasels and stoats always come back for their 

 dead. The best way, then, is to leave the shot 

 weasel where it falls, and quietly take cover near 

 by. In a few minutes one or two of the others 

 will come back for the corpse, and they too should 

 be shot and left without being touched, the gunner 

 still remaining concealed till he has done his work. 

 One need not be led away by any false sentiments 

 to the effect that they come back for their dead 

 prompted by a sense of family love for them, 

 for the weasel loves no one, and is just as ready 

 to murder his own mother as he would be to 

 murder a family of blind and helpless kittens. 

 He is a renegade and an outlaw, in whose character 

 there is not one lovable feature, unless it be that 

 he maintains a lifelong feud against a creature 

 more loathsome and destructive than himself 

 the gray rat of our hedgerows and outhouses. 



VALUE TO MAN. 



Though a mortal enemy to the gamekeeper, 

 the weasel is unquestionably a friend to the farmer. 

 The desirability of reducing the rat population 

 in every way possible is dealt with in the chapter 

 treating of that animal, but here it may be stated 

 that the weasels are one of nature's methods of 

 keeping within reasonable limits the population 

 of earth-burrowing rodents. Sometimes a stoat 

 or a weasel takes up its abode among rat-infested 

 granaries and outhouses, and the destruction it 

 works among the rodents is enormous. To quote 

 an actual example : A farmer in Yorkshire, whose 

 outbuildings were overrun by rats, one day noticed 



