NOTES AND QUERIES. 381 



quite a different road. The day had been wet, and in walking out — about 

 8 in the evening — I came quite suddenly on a group of three Stoats 

 engaged in a great game of play on the road : they had a hole, or at any 

 rate a niche, among the stones of the fence on each side, and retired for a 

 moment on discovering an intruder, for they caught sight of me at the same 

 instant as I did of them; but apparently they have just as great an 

 objection to be baulked of their play as their victuals, for they almost 

 immediately returned, and, as T remained perfectly quiet a few yards away, 

 the game was resumed, and proved extremely lively. From their behaviour 

 I suppose the animals were young, but they seemed quite full grown : two 

 of them (males I should think) were longer and redder than the third. A 

 curious crowing sort of note — " curoo, curoo, curoo," uttered very quickly — 

 was frequently uttered, and invariably when they ran at full speed. Great 

 part of the game consisted in all three animals careering across the road 

 again and again, frequently crossing each other, when they sometimes 

 sprang high in the air and cannoned against one another, all evidently in 

 the height of fun. Then there was a ceremony which I could not quite 

 understand, of pressing their noses on the bare ground and running along 

 for a foot or so, making a slight grating noise, I do not know how : they all 

 did this. Then they would play with one another like kittens, one chasing 

 another, knocking it down, and running off crying u curoo, curoo," to be 

 knocked down in its turn. And one of the three could turn as perfect a 

 somersault as any boy I have seen, doing it, moreover, in exactly the same 

 way, — placing his head very deliberately on the ground as the first step, 

 and then turning quite gracefully over, and righting itself just in time to 

 avoid falling on its back, by standing erect on its hind legs. It did this 

 several times, but, as far as I could make out, it was always the same one. 

 At last one of the two ruddier fellows ran up a tree, and left his comrades 

 alone for a while, and then the most curious part of the affair began. The 

 two Stoats regularly set themselves to enjoy a game of " Tom Tiddler's 

 Ground " with me: it was the most barefaced piece of impudence that I 

 have ever experienced from a pair of wild animals yet, although the 

 Hedgehogs up in the woods have often come thrusting their snouts under 

 my feet to see if there were beetles there ; they took me for an old tree, so 

 might be excused. But these Stoats knew perfectly well that I was not a 

 tree. Their game consisted in trying how near they dared to approach me ; 

 they would come side by side with a graceful and joyous trot straight 

 towards me, like lambs or fawns coming to be petted ; then suddenly 

 both would turn tail, and, whistling "curoo, curoo," rush off at full 

 speed, almost tumbling in their desperate haste, fully persuaded I was 

 after them ; then, discovering that I had stood stock still, they again came 

 bounding along with the same agile grace and sociable expression, and, 

 when within a very few feet of the mysterious object, fled again with the 



