472 
Vermin of ilie Farm. 
Tlie stoat (fig. 7) may be always known, from the weasel by its 
larger size, and by its invariably having a black tip to its tail, 
which the weasel never has. The stoat’s tail also is much longer 
in proportion to its body. 
As may be supposed from their relationship, their habits 
are much the same, the chief difference of course being 
that the stoat, from its larger size, is able to prey upon larger 
animals. It will also carry off a hen’s egg between its chin 
and breast, holding it in this manner quite securely, while 
the paws being unencumbered, it is able to beat a retreat. 
Like the weasel, it hunts by scent, and will even follow its 
prey into the water. One evening in July Mr. T. J. Mann, 
while walking by the side of a stream in North Norfolk, 
was attracted by the noise made by some water-rats in the 
grass some ten yards distant from where he stood. Two rats 
jumped into the stream, which was about 20 feet wide, closely 
followed by a stoat, which swam quickly though jerkily in 
pursuit, but the rats on this occasion made good their escape. 
We have watched stoats hunting both rats and rabbits, and 
were once witness to a most determined fight, on a road which 
crossed a Sussex common, between an average-sized stoat and 
an enormous rat, which was certainly much heavier than its 
adversary. This fight, which was a trial of “ weight versxis 
science,” ended in favour of the stoat, which killed its adversary 
and dragged it off’ the road into the furze on the common. 
The change of colour which the stoat undergoes in winter is 
the more curious when we consider that no such change takes 
observes that, whilst various mammals and birds of prey are mentioned as 
destroyers of the field-mouse, none are so useful in this respect as the little 
weasel. Chiefly during the night — especially in abundant mouse years — but 
also to some extent in the day, it is busily occupied in catching field-mice. 
As soon as the slender little carnivore creeps into a mouse-hole, the terrified 
rodents may be seen springing up, as if possessed, from the neighbouring 
burrows ; but the weasel has speedily seized a mouse by the throat, and has 
bitten into the arteries of the neck, so that it may taste the blood of its 
victim. Inasmuch as the weasel, like other members of the marten family, 
only eats its prey when in need, being usually satisfied with merely drinking 
its blood, it requires many field-mice for its daily food. There thus comes 
upon it a delight in killing, so that even when sati.ated it still goes on 
killing for mere pleasure. Hence it is that a .single weasel may easily destroy 
two dozen field-mice, or it may be more, in the space of one day. When the 
weasel has young it drags many dead mice into its nest. As destroyers of field- 
mice, the w'easels excel over other similar animals of prey— firstly, by their 
far greater number ; .secondly, by their slender, snake-like, active bodies, 
which enable them to search as no other animals can for the field-mice in all 
their holes and burrows; and thirdly, by the circumstance that they continue 
the destruction of mice through the winter. In years when field-mice are 
exceptionally abundant, there appears to be a second litter of young weasels 
in the early autumn months.— Ed. 
