THE FOX 69 



seems to you an aimless way ; but stand still for 

 a minute, and you will probably see the lithe form 

 of the relentless stoat gliding swiftly in his track. 

 You may have never seen a stoat hunt a rabbit, 

 and if not, it is a thing the lover of wild life 

 should see. 1 Few people know the difference 

 between the stoat and the weasel. The result 

 is that the latter, who does much good in killing 

 mice, is ruthlessly destroyed. To an ear accus- 

 tomed to the sounds, the note of alarm in a 

 blackbird, or the screech of defiance from magpie 

 and jay, will tell you that some enemy, and most 

 likely a fox, is in the neighbourhood. When you 

 see rooks circling round one spot and cawing 

 excitedly, you may generally conclude they are 

 reminding a fox of that bit of cheese which the 

 ancient fable tells us one of their tribe lost. I 

 have never been able to account satisfactorily to 

 myself why there should be this enmity between 

 the bird and the beast. Except an occasional 

 fledgeling that hops out of the nest before it can 

 fly, and falls to the ground, a family of rooks 

 seems to me to be out of all danger from a four- 



i See mid Life in Hampshire Highlands (Haddon Hall Library), 

 page 276. 



