of noting the point, that the amount of white in the summer coat increases with age, and by inference that the majority of individuals in this and other southern counties which turn more or less completely white in winter are fairly old animals (not necessarily of extreme age). In some cases in the summer coat the white on the hind feet is limited to one or two hairs, while on the fore feet merely the three inner toes are more or less white, and the two outer toes have only one or two white hairs on them. On the other hand some summer specimens have all four feet completely white, the white extending up so as to be continuous with that on the under side of the body, which also varies in breadth; and there are all intermediate variations. A female trapped at Ibstone on 13 March 1901 contained five foetuses, three in the right horn of the uterus, and two in the left, about the size of castor oil beans (or the largest pea, or small nut), making it probable that she was about a fortnight gone in pregnancy. If therefore, as is likely, though quite unknown, the gestation of this species is about forty days, these young would have been born about 8 April. The average date for the birth of stoats is probably a little later than this. In captivity stoats starve sooner than eat ' pluck ' even perfectly fresh livers, hearts, etc., of rabbits or poultry, but must be fed exclusively on the flesh of birds or small animals; rabbits by preference! It is astonishing to see, when a heavy fall of snow facilitates tracking, the amount of ground a stoat will cover; and when rabbits are scarce, the great number of holes a stoat will descend in quest of a supper. In summer stoats often frequent the banks of small rivers, or ditches, in pursuit of water-voles. They are good climbers, sometimes ascending trees to a height of 30 feet or so, and are quite adept at birds' nesting in tall hedges. They have much larger feet in proportion to their size than either polecats or weasels, and like martens are to a great extent plantigrade. I have a race of hybrids between stoat and ferret and now descended to the fourth generation of hybrid bred with hybrid. Instances of weasels being caught in traps set for moles in the runs of the latter are common, but it seems worth recording the capture of a stoat under these circumstances on my land at Poynetts in Hambledon parish on 29 February 1904. It was caught without injury by the neck and I have it alive at the time this is passing through the pres..
[The Irish Stoat, Putorius hibernicus, is confined to the country it is named after.]
17. Weasel. Putorius nivalis, Linn.
Bell Mustela vulgans.
Probably everywhere in Bucks, as elsewhere in the southern three-quarters of Great Britain, the weasel is more numerous than the stoat; very much thinned down where game has been systematically preserved over a fairly large area for any length of time, but still fairly numerous where there are districts less strictly trapped, and in some places quite common. Among animals whose dietary presents no special difficulty, weasels are perhaps the hardest to keep alive for any length of time in captivity, from their excitability. No animal gets tame up to a certain point so quickly as the general run of weasels, and yet at any subsequent time any disturbance may cause sudden death, apparently by something akin to apoplexy. While admittedly mischievous to the young of game birds and to rabbits, yet to farmers, gardeners, horticulturists and foresters, weasels are the greatest possible benefactors. Like kestrels and the owls among birds, their chief food supplies are drawn from the hosts of mice and small voles which work such an incalculable amount of mischief to the vegetable world. The committee appointed by the Board of Agriculture in 1892 to inquire into the plague ot field voles in Scotland, recommended that weasels should be tolerated, as from their small size, the destruction they wreak on game is slight, while the good they effect by checking the numbers of the smaller rodents is very great and certain. [1] Weasels are hardly such expert climbers as stoats, which may be accounted for by their shorter legs and relatively much smaller sized feet, and being more digitigrade than the latter. They have not the aquatic habits of the stoat. A sign of their uncontrollable excitability is shown in a state of freedom by the readiness with which they can sometimes be drawn from a hiding place by making a sharp chirping or squeaking noise; and in captivity by the extraordinary boldness with which after a very few days they come out and show themselves, so different to the behaviour of any other wild animal with which I am acquainted. There are exceptions even to this rule; I have had one weasel, and one only, that declined to show itself until it had been caged for a good many weeks. I have been told since I came to live at mv p resent home in Hambleden parish,
- ↑ At least one large landowner (Lord Barnard at Raby Castle, Durham) in a printed Memorandum of Instructions to Gamekeepers, etc., has: ' Where rats, mice, voles, etc., are numerous, Weasels should be preserved.'
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