Practical Game-Preserving. 298 



of its depredations, except, however, in the case of 

 poultry, which it rarely troubles to carry. Animals 

 killed by polecats have sometimes apparently been mauled 

 a good deal, that is to say, they appear to have been 

 rolled and flung about. Perhaps the vermin in such 

 cases plays with its prey and lies upon it while sucking 

 the blood at any rate, an odour of the fitch's fcetor will 

 probably be present, leaving little doubt as to the perpe- 

 trator of the offence. Rabbits the foumart mostly de- 

 stroys in their burrows, and generally leaves them dead 

 inside, a foot or so from the mouth of the hole; it rarely, 

 however, kills more than one at a time, and will return 

 to the same holt after sufficient time has elapsed for the 

 rabbits to have quieted themselves down again in their old 

 retreat. Pheasants the polecat obtains when they roost 

 low down on trees, and it will often steal upon the sitting- 

 hen and kill her on her nest, the eggs, however, not being 

 molested ; hence, if the bird should be warned in time by 

 the excitement of the small birds in her neighbourhood, 

 which may have detected the vermin, she has at least a 

 chance of escape. The way hares fall victims has already 

 been indicated. 



The possibility of crossing the polecat with the ferret 

 was at one time a disputed fact. The breed or variety 

 termed " polecat ferrets " is now, however, so common 

 as to have become nearly as numerous as the others. It 

 is interesting to note that Mr. Trevor Battye has succeeded 

 in taming polecats, and breeding from them in confine- 

 ment, so as to employ them in the same manner as ferrets. 



The fitch, when attacked, fights with enormous pluck, 

 and is a queer customer for a terrier, few of which will 

 go in and kill it in the first round. It is an ill-advised 

 indiscretion to corner a polecat, because it will often turn 

 upon its aggressor, and the bite of one is always painful 



