122 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME. 



bank drilled with holes, from which the rabbits in wild 

 alarm were darting in all directions. The weasels raced 

 from hole to hole and along the sides of the bank exactly- 

 like a pack of hounds, and seemed intensely excited. 

 Their manner of hunting resembles the motions of ants ; 

 these insects run a little way very swiftly, then stop, turn 

 to the right or left, make a short detour, and afterwards on 

 again in a straight line. So the pack of weasels darted 

 forward, stopped, went from side to side, and then on a 

 yard or two, and repeated the process. To see their 

 reddish heads thrust for a moment from the holes, then 

 withdrawn to reappear at another, would have been amus- 

 ing had it not been for the reflection that their frisky 

 tricks would assuredly end in death. They ran their 

 quarry out of the bank and into a wood, where I lost 

 sight of them. The pack of eight was seen by a labourer 

 returning down a woodland lane from work one afternoon. 

 He told me he got into the ditch, half from curiosity to 

 watch them, and half from fear — laughable as that may 

 seem — for he had heard the old people tell stories of men 

 in the days when the corn was kept for years in barns, and 

 so bred hundreds of rats, being attacked by those vicious 

 brutes. He said they made a noise, crying to each other, 

 short sharp snappy sounds ; but the pack of five I myself 

 saw hunted in silence. 



Stoats, though not so numerous as weasels, probably 

 do quite as much injury, being larger, swifter, stronger, and 



