92 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 
in strength is counterbalanced by a stoat’s activity. 
I should say that a pitched battle between a stoat 
and a ferret would be a right royal contest, though 
doubtless the result would depend on whichever got 
first grip in a vital part. I know of one instance 
only in which a stoat failed to bolt before a ferret, 
for the very sufficient reason that the ferret killed 
it. I had lined a dog ferret of ordinary size into a 
rabbit-burrow, and as he hung tightly to something, 
I dug after him. There were no more signs of a 
struggle than a ferret and rabbit usually make—not 
even a chatter of anger. When I reached the ferret 
he had eaten several mouthfuls of a large dog stoat 
which evidently he had just killed, and near them 
lay a dead rabbit, also just killed. Either the ferret 
and stoat had fought for the rabbit, or the stoat had 
failed to get past the ferret, the part of the burrow 
in which they were being a cul-de-sac. 
A stoat chased by a dog, or bolted by a ferret, or 
knowing that it is otherwise hunted, offers the most 
difficult shot I know of—going like a streak, bound- 
ing onwards and leaping in a most puzzling zigzag 
way at the same time, so as to make its real direction 
difficult to follow, even in a clear space. Both 
stoats and weasels are of a curious disposition. For 
instance, when, alarmed but not pursued, they have 
sought refuge in a hole, they are no sooner inside 
than they will appear at the entrance; but so quick 
are they that as arule it is impossible to get your gun 
