The Mammals of Great Britain and Ireland
the Stoat and the weasel, and that the latter are often killed but not eaten by the
former; but I can obtain no satisfactory proof of this.
Charles St. John thus describes Stoat hunting in Scotland : 1 ‘ My rabbit beagles
ran him for a long time, full cry in some rough ground. Whenever the Stoat
went into a rabbit-hole I turned him out with a ferret, in this way running him
until I killed him.’ For many years a pack of hounds called ‘ weasel hounds ’
have hunted this animal in Cork, and there are many accounts in Irish papers of
the sport. The hounds used are a cross between the Welsh beagle and the Irish
foxhound, about 15 or 16 inches in height. In an account before me ‘ The Irish
Sportsman ’ 2 says of the Stoat: ‘ A wonderful little animal, which can run in
the open like a fox, swim and dive like an otter, double and twist like a hare, and
climb the highest tree with more agility than a cat, all of which we have many
times seen him do. On a good scenting day the hounds will hunt up a “ weasel %
(Stoat) in about twenty or thirty minutes, if the country is open and the fields
extensive; but if scent is not good, and there is much cover, the weasel generally
stands up before them for four or five hours, and beats them in the end.’
A curious variety of the Stoat, which was said to be black and white, was
noticed in Ireland and recorded in the ‘ Field.’ 8
Mr. Harting records4 a perfectly white Stoat, tail and all parts white, eyes
dark brown, which was shot at Llandovery Court, Usk, on August 3, 1887. The
specimen is now in the Natural History Museum at South Kensington.
Mr. J . Whitaker, of Rainworth, informs me that he has a pure albino Stoat.5
SU B -SP E C IE S .
T he Irish S toat.
Putorius hibernicus, Oldfield Thomas and G. E. H. Barrett-Hamilton.
Putorius hibernicus, Oldfield Thomas and G. E. H. Barrett-Hamilton, ‘ Zoologist,’ pp. 124-
129, April 1895.
Local Names.—Easog (pronounced Assogue) (Irish Gaelic); Assag (Isle of Man).
Characters.—As given by the discoverers of this sub-species,6 the characters
are as follows: ‘ Smaller than P . ermineus, the male scarcely exceeding in size
1 Tour in Sutherland, p. 179. 2 May 21, 1892. 3 March 31, 1883.
4 Zoologist, 1887, p. 345. 5 field , February 22, 1897.
6 Marked dental distinctions or peculiarities of structure should alone be sufficient to make a species. Slight
differences of pelage are insufficient in the creation of a sub-species, but differences in the colour of the hair that are well
marked and constant should, I think, be considered conclusive. Consequently I have treated this animal merely as a subspecies
of P . ermineus.