Practical Game-Preserving. 38 



of moles, and will often, after having killed off the owner, 

 take possession of the run for the purpose of bringing off 

 a litter of young ones. 



The localities which the weasel likes to frequent are 

 similar to those of the stoat or the fitch, and differ con- 

 siderably from those in which it constructs, or in some 

 cases finds, its breeding-place. Preferring more open 

 and sunny spots, and courting at no time darkness and 

 solitude, the weasels form themselves into communities, 

 ranging in all instances from about six to even fifteen 

 members, generally an equal number of males and females. 

 Affecting always situations of a corresponding kind to 

 those agreeable to the stoat, the vermin under notice, how- 

 ever, choose those situated on high ground, which is well 

 open to the sun, and among the most favoured spots may 

 be enumerated the following, as showing the general 

 nature of the locality in which they may be mostly looked 

 for. At all times stone walls are its special resort, and 

 particularly those rough ones forming boundaries to fields. 

 Along such boundaries bramble and gorse, besides low 

 bushes, are sure to be present, and should this wall be the 

 parting between a covert or a wood, then it is certainly a 

 most likely harbour for them. Again, those small hollows 

 sometimes present in pasture fields roughly, miniature 

 gravel -pits which are always partly covered with a rough 

 brake of brambles and the like ; along high-banked roads, 

 too, where cutting has been made to acquire a better level, 

 or where the road is cut into the side of a hill ; further, 

 by the banks of still flowing brooks and streams, wherever 

 a more than ordinary rough place occurs, or where, per- 

 haps, a dividing hedge or a bank reaches right down to the 

 water; small fir plantations and little woods having a 

 warm and sheltered situation, and that are well open to 

 the sun indeed, to cut a long list of places short, any of 



