It had got within ten yards of its unconscious victims when two old thrushes
came flying from the wood shrieking with all their might, first above the Stoat
and then over their threatened offspring. The young birds at last took the hint
and flew slowly one after another into the wood, whither the disappointed diner
promptly followed them.
A writer in ‘ Country Life ’ describes two Stoats which he watched playing
one winter’s day in Yorkshire.
‘ I verily thought they must have gone mad. They rolled over and over each
other, twisting along the ground like snakes, and at times would jump fully four
feet in the air, sparring at each other for all the world like a couple of boxers.’
Mr. C. B. Moffat, writing from Ballyhyland, Enniscorthy, charmingly
described the tameness of some Stoats which he witnessed in June 1890.1
‘ The day had been wet, and in walking out—about eight in the evening
I came quite suddenly on a group of three Stoats engaged in a great game of play
on the road: they had a hole, or at any rate a niche, among the stones of the
fence on each side, and retired for a moment on discovering an intruder, for they
caught sight of me at the same instant as I did of them ; but apparently they
have just as great an objection to be balked of their play as their victuals, for
they almost immediately returned, and, as I remained perfectly quiet a few yards
away, the game was resumed, and proved extremely lively. From their behaviour
I suppose the animals were young, but they seemed quite full-grown : two of
them (males I should think) were longer and redder than the third. A curious
crowing sort of note— “ curoo, curoo, curoo,” uttered very quickly—was frequently
uttered, and invariably when they ran at full speed. Great part of the game
consisted in all three animals careering across the road again and again, frequently
crossing each other, when they sometimes sprang high in the air and cannoned
against one another, all evidently in the height of fun. Then there was a
ceremony, which I could not quite understand, of pressing their noses on the
bare ground and running along for a foot or so, making a slight grating noise,
I do not know how: they all did this. Then they would play with one another
like kittens, one phasing another, knocking it down, and running off crying
“ curoo, curoo,” to be knocked down in its turn. And one of the three could
turn as perfect a somersault as any boy I have seen, doing it, moreover, in
exactly the same way—placing his head very deliberately on the ground as the
first step, and then turning quite gracefully over, and righting itself just in time
1 Zoologist, 1890, p. 381.