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For fear of the swallows, the summer beetles fly by choice at twilight; even then they must needs fly low, for the noctule never misses, and the crunch of his teeth in a beetle's horny back is all he knows of music. The stoat came from a tree which was even more decrepit than the chestnut. It had been an elm once.
The stoat, plus a new carmine decoration for gallantry, remembered an urgent appointment down a rat-hole, and kept it. Perhaps it was a young stoat, and had not learnt that there are at least four degrees of cock-pheasant, namely, young and brainless, adult and brave, old and brave and cunning, and old and decrepit; but the last stage is a rare bird.
By day all through the summer months there was always something to be seen in the lane a squirrel, a stoat; always a song-bird to listen to, a flower or fern to gather. By night the goatsucker visited it, and the bat, and the white owl gliding down the slope.
"Men," said Malcolm, "I have spared that foolish lord there for the sake of this fisher girl and his child, but don't one of you touch me." Stoat was a brave enough man, and not a little jealous of Malcolm, but he dared not obey his mistress. And now came the tramp of many feet along the landing from the stair head, and the six fisherman entered, two and two. Florimel started forward.
Stoats and weasels are always shot when seen, they are frequently trapped, and in every manner hunted to the death and their litters destroyed the last the most effectual method of extermination. But in spite of the unceasing enmity directed against them, stoat and weasel remain common. They still take their share of game, both winged and ground. Stoat and weasel will not be killed out.
Her soul assured her of it. "To my sister," answered Malcolm, "I will give all the proof she may please to require to Lord Liftore I will not even repeat my assertion: to him I will give no shadow of proof. I will but cast him out of my house. Stoat, order horses for Lady Bellair." "Gien ye please, sir, my lord," replied Stoat, "the Lossie Airms' horses is ordered a'ready for Lady Clementina."
Eager to gain the favour of his master by providing him good sport in the coming autumn, the new keeper ranged the woods from dawn till dusk, setting pole-traps in the trees, or baiting rabbit-traps in the "creeps" of stoat or weasel, and destroying nests, as well as shooting any furred or feathered creature of questionable character.
He prowled the lonely lanes and paths in the darkness, and became better acquainted with a multitude of intriguing little cries and noises that came from the hedges and coverts at night. One night he rescued a young leveret from a stoat, who seemed more than half inclined to give him battle for its prey until he cowed and defeated it with the glare of his electric torch....
"Yes; something must be done," said Cloctaw. "Something must be done," said Ki Ki. "I think, think so," said Tchink. "I, too," said the dove. "Quite true," said the wood-pigeon. "Something must be done," said the stoat. "Let us tell Kapchack what we think," said the mouse, getting bold, as he was not eaten. "A good idea," said the crow; "a very good idea. We will send the mouse with a message."
These weasels often hunt in packs like the British stoat. When I was a boy, my father one day armed me with an old musket and sent me to shoot chipmunks around the corn. While watching the squirrels, a troop of weasels tried to cross a bar-way where I sat, and were so bent on doing it that I fired at them, boy-like, simply to thwart their purpose.
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