94 Mr. J. E. Harting on Forest Animals.
No apprehension need be felt about the proximity of a
badger to a farmstead. He is of a retiring disposition, and
will keep out of man's way as much as possible.
Badgers sleep away much of their time in winter, and
can go a long time without food. Their footprints are
seldom seen in the snow.
Amongst the carnivorous animals which may often be
seen hanging up in "the keeper's museum" at the corner
of a wood, are the Weasel and Stoat, the latter distin-
guished by his larger size, and longer tail with a black tuft
at the end of it.
Weasels I regard as particularly useful animals, for they
destroy a vast number of mice and voles. They should
always be encouraged in the stackyard, instead of being
caught and nailed up against the barn. Stoats I am not.
so sure about. They kill rabbits, leverets, and young game
birds. Doubtless they kill field-mice too. I have twice seen
a stoat carrying a short-tailed vole as a retriever would a
rabbit; and I once witnessed a fight between a stoat and
a rat, in which the stoat, after a tremendous struggle,
came off victorious.
Both stoats and weasels hunt by scent, as I have several
times proved by personal observation, and I could relate
many curious anecdotes of what I have witnessed. Both
these animals swim well, and do so voluntarily. I once
had the pleasure of watching an old stoat giving her young
one a swimming lesson, and a very entertaining sight it
was. They carry their young in their mouths, as cats do
their kittens.
The stoat becomes white, or nearly so, in winter; but
there is usually a patch of brown on the face, and the tip
of the tail is always black both summer and winter.
The weasel very rarely becomes white. I have only
seen two that were so: one killed at Willoughby, in
Leicestershire, in the winter of 1867 ; the other in Soham
Fen, Cambridgeshire, in September, 1879.
The Polecat (from which the ferret is descended) is now
becoming a rare animal in England, and is not often to be
seen, so extensively has it been trapped by game preservers