ENEMIES OF THE GAME-REARER 



distance outwards of 15 feet or so. It need not be deep, 

 but it must be allowed to fill with water, and the banks should 

 be as precipitous as they can be made. If a smaller stream 

 joins the larger stream at any point, there is the place ready 

 to hand. A Stoat coming down the bank of a stream must 

 cross over this tributary or return, and if a pole is to be found 

 stretching across the minor portion of water, at the spot where 

 it joins the main body, Mr Stoat will make use of it to his 

 final discomfiture if the gamekeeper has carried out the plot 

 skilfully. Always hang a dead Stoat near the trap that has 

 caught it, for surviving Stoats have a habit of showing their 

 respect for deceased relatives by gathering around the spot 

 where the keeper has exposed the mortal remains, and finally 

 the place of mortuary becomes more fascinating than ever, 

 owing to the speedy addition of the bodies of the various 

 pilgrims to those already exposed. Some people say a fresh 

 bait for a Stoat is the best, but a stinking bait is really the 

 most attractive. It is not meant that the Stoat will eat such 

 a bait, but he smells it at a greater distance than he would a 

 perfectly fresh bait, and cannot resist coming to see what has 

 been left behind by another Stoat. Of course he cannot 

 believe anything besides a Stoat capable of killing rabbits, 

 etc., so that his curiosity brings about his end. When a 

 gamekeeper has been successful in capturing a succession of 

 Stoats in a certain trap, he is apt to take it up under the im- 

 pression that he has cleared the neighbourhood ; this par- 

 ticularly refers if there happens to be a lull in the stream of 

 victims. But he makes no greater mistake, for he has been 

 fortunate enough to locate his trap within killing distance of 

 one of the highways followed by travelling Stoats, and if that 

 trap is kept going it will capture Stoats as they arrive. A 

 Stoat rarely takes to the open, and when it does, only with 

 the assurance that shelter is within easy reach ; the line it 



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