ii6 Lloyd's natural history. 



swimmer. Kept in captivity it shows a great fondness for 

 water, and will not hesitate to plunge in and pick up food 

 from the bottom of a bath full of water. Captive Polecats 

 are frequently early overtaken by blindness." 



Although both the Polecat and the Stoat are regarded — and 

 on the whole rightly — as unmitigated vermin, to be ruthlessly 

 destroyed whenever met with, there can be no doubt, as Mr. 

 Harting remarks, there was a time, before the days of strict 

 preserving, when both these animals lived among game of al] 

 kinds without causing any diminution in the numbers of the 

 latter. Indeed, it is by no means improbable that they were 

 an actual advantage, since by killing off all the weakly and 

 maimed individuals of the various kinds of game they led to a 

 survival of the fittest. 



The Ferret is a pale-coloured and almost albino domesticated 

 variety of the Polecat, which is, however, much improved by 

 crossing with the dark-coloured wild race. Mr. Trevor-Battye 

 says : — "A wild-caught Polecat, though always difficult to 

 handle, can easily be worked like a Ferret for Rats; and in this 

 work they are far superior to Ferrets, owing to their extreme 

 agility. They do not delay in the hole, but, on the Rat bolting, 

 follow it out and catch it in a couple of bounds." 



Ill THE STOAT, OR ERMINE. MUSTELA ERMINEA. 



Mustela erminea, Linn., Syst. Nat. ed. 12 vol. i. p. 68 

 (1766); Bell, British Quadrupeds 2nd ed. p. 191 

 (1874). 



Fcetorius erminea, Keyserling and Blasius, Wirbelthiere Europ. 

 p. 69 (1840). 



Puterius crmineus, Owen, Brit. Foss. Mamm. p. 116 (1846). 



{Plates KIl. and XIII.\ 



