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THE RAT. 
destructive, frequently taking life merely for the blood or 
brains, or to gratify a murderous propensity. Gamekeepers 
are ever on the alert, and as soon as they discover him to be 
in the neighbourhood, they never let him rest till they have 
killed him ; the result is, that there are but few polecats to 
be met with : consequently they can do but little towards 
destroying rats, even were they so disposed. 
The stoat is somewhat like the polecat in disposition, and 
very destructive among partridges, young pheasants, leverets, 
rabbits, and chickens. Sometimes, when hard pressed for food, 
he will hunt the water-rat ; but if the rat gets the start, he 
disappears in the water, where the stoat feels but little 
disposition to follow him. Game is his general food, and 
gamekeepers never let him rest till they have killed 
him ; consequently his ravages among rats must be very 
limited. 
The home of the weasel is anywhere, but principally in 
hedge-bottoms and old walls. Sometimes he will come 
about the farm-buildings and hen-roost, and is very 
destructive among chickens, for which farmers and their 
men mostly kill him wherever they can ; but he will at any 
time give the preference to a chicken or duckling, to fighting 
with a rat for a meal. He is generally too small to contend 
with a rat ; and I have my doubts as to whether a weasel 
could beat a full-grown rat in a fair open contest ; for I know 
of no animal of the rat's size, except the squirrel, which can 
inflict so deep a wound. 
A celebrated naturalist tells us that while he was watching 
some birds by the copse side, a hare ran out not far from him, 
and, after pausing for a minute, returned through another 
opening. The hare had scarcely entered the copse, when 
out came a weasel in pursuit, tracking the hare by scent, 
and disappeared again in the copse. Presently out dashed 
the hare a second time ; then threw itself down in the grass, 
and screamed till the weasel came up and seized it in the 
nape of the neck. The struggle was but of short duration, 
for before our authority could get to the place, the weasel 
had run away, and the hare was dead. This almost sudden 
death of the hare not only surprised him, but excited his 
curiosity to examine the wound, and upon close inspection 
he discovered only two little punctures, like small pin-holes ; 
