THE WEASEL AND THE STOAT (THE ERMINE). 97 



it moves to a new hunting-ground, and there 

 repeats the appalling business. 



WARRENS. 



The home -burrow of a weasel, in which the 

 young are probably born, is often very extensive 

 may, indeed, underlie several acres of forest, the 

 weasel-tunnels tapping the mouse-tunnels in so 

 many ways that it becomes impossible to tell 

 where one set begins and the other ends. Where 

 mice are abundant, the earth for acres may be 

 a veritable network of creeps and runways just 

 under the leaf-mould, so that the mouse fraternity 

 can hold intercourse freely without venturing 

 above ground. The individual communities live 

 in the dead tree-roots, &c., each of which is a 

 castle of habitation, while all are interconnected 

 by underground corridors. The weasel takes 

 over one of these castles, and is thus in touch 

 with the whole mouse community of the forest; 

 it could live for days without showing itself 

 above ground. The mouse-creeps lead to and 

 from the stream, and branch off from hedgerow 

 to hedgerow, a veritable labyrinth throughout the 

 wood ; and the weasel, passing like a phantom of 

 death along these corridors, slaying in every corner 

 and leaving the slaughtered where they lie, is, 

 moreover, able to surprise the pheasant scratching 

 obliviously among the leaves by darting from some 

 screened opening in the ferns, or even by thrusting 

 its way through the leaf-mould at the pheasant's 

 very feet. To most wild creatures the earth is 

 mother only she screens their blind and helpless 

 babyhood in her damp recesses, but thereafter 

 the earth is regarded by them only as a place of 

 sanctuary ; but this little usurper of every creature's 



W.A. g 



