102 THE STOAT, OR ERMINE. 



of a hound.* When the scent is its only guide, the stoat runs 

 with its nose close to the ground all the time, until it has its 

 prey within sight, and then it holds its head up high. If the 

 fugitive take to the water, the stoat will do so likewise 5 and a 

 writer says, that one fine evening in spring, he observed a stoat 

 swim gently across the deep and wide expanse of the river 

 Wear, between Schincliffe Bridge and Old Durham, and that 

 while swimming, " it lifted its head and neck out of the water 

 like a dog."f 



Hares, rabbits, rats, water-rats, mice, pheasants, partridges, 

 pigeons, and, indeed, all kinds of birds, and of every size, are 

 the victims of its rapacity, and to capture them it displays great 

 boldness, cunning, and agility. It is said that it always seizes 

 hares and rabbits between the ears, and then bites them through 

 the brain, the way in which the ferret, when not muzzled, kills 

 the latter animals, j Professor Bell says, that because it cannot 

 follow mice into their runs, which are often not much larger than 

 their own bodies, " the stoat leaves such small game to its little 

 congener the weasel, and betakes itself to prey more suited to 

 its own bulk." I have no doubt, however, that he is mistaken 

 in thus asserting that the stoat despises such small game as 

 field mice. Pennant states most distinctly that it feeds upon 

 mice. But lest the professor should be dissatisfied with the 

 statement of one whom he has most ungratefully attempted to 

 stigmatize as "a celebrated drawing-room zoologist," I will 



* Captain Lyon mentions his having seen an ermine (? M. Cicognanif) hunt 

 the footsteps of mice like a hound after a fox. Fleming, in his Natural History 

 of British Animals (1828), says " he has seen it tracing the steps of a hare 

 with as much accuracy as a harrier." Further testimony of this interesting 

 fact is published in the Magazine of Natural History, vol. v. (1832), p. 721; 

 vol. vi. (1833), p. 202. 



f Mag. Nat. Hist. vol. v. (1832), p. 723. J Ibid. vol. vi. (1833), p. 202. 



Bell's History of British Reptiles (1839), p. 107 a work containing much 

 interesting" information, derived from Dr. Robert Townson's Tracts on the 

 Physiology of the Amphibia, first published in Germany, and subsequently 

 printed in London, " for the author," in 1799. Though the professor's work 

 exhibits the clearest evidence of a knowledge of Dr. Townson's Tracts, yet he 

 neither mentions them nor the author. I apprehend that Pennant would 

 have adopted a different course. 



