sketches of fallow deer, when a lai
fifty yards away. There were about
betrayed the slightest alarm at the
for a few minutes the Stoat made a
as if in play,' and then commenced
worry it. The rabbit meanwhile <
frightened, as it commenced to feed
Stoat then, after several snake-like
rabbits, one of them a full-grown t
movement of which could be plainly
then apparently satisfied, and retired
There is not the least doubt that
amongst the rabbits on whose you
practised so as to accustom hi- nerv
During his antics only such rabbit;
concern ; others just stopped ieedtng
ge Stoat emerged from a rabbit warren about
fifty rabbits round about, but none of them
presence of the Stoat. After running about
rush at a young rabbit and knocked it over,
mauling it about the neck and pretending to
crouched down and evidently was not very
again as soon as its persecutor had left it. The
gyrations on the grass, went up to two other
me, and repeated the same performance, every
■ seen through my powerful telescope. It was
to out: of the holes, into which it disappeared,
this cunning fellow was making his home
ng he lived, and that this daily play was
ous neighbours to the presence of a murderer.
; as were within a yard or. two displayed any
ami dropped their ears.
[ by ’ Derg ’ in the ‘ Field.’ 1 He s a y s :
her day I was much amused at watching the
Another instance of this is citec
1 When shooting rabbits the ot
antics of a Stoat on the a
grazing and sitting up on
they must have seen it. A
hour, I could not perceive
rabbits; but its motions vs
apparently without any obj
direction, it constantly tun
its zigzag journey, which w&
the midst of the rabbits, m
On one occasion in }u i
when I heard an unusual
small cover at my back. O
were some twenty or thirty
parents to bring them food
the young birds, some fort
series of somersaults. Afte
towards the stupid youngste
side c-:' •>. wall in the midst of a number of rabbits
side- of it, apparently quite unconcerned, though
■ watched it for more than a quarter of an
t ft had any intention whatever of attacking the
movt surprising from their rapidity and activity,
perhaps for sport. Moving in a zigzag
a crsault in the air, and would then continue
ft continuous, but up and down the fence, through
:casu »rally into the walls.’
B99 1 was sitting drawing deer in Warnham Park
notion amongst the blackbirds and thrushes in the
\ the open park, about thirty yards from the cover,
a*g thrushes hopping about and waiting for their
recently a Stoat looked out of the bushes opposite
»d s from me, and at once commenced turning a
tch performance it would advance a foot or two
who seemed lost in wonder at its curious antics.
i, 1887.