Lurking-places
The keeper's eyes are always open for stoats. They are fond of prying about the base of a gate-post, where a trap is often set to good purpose. Then they delight in frisking along the middle of a ride, especially after rain. There the keeper sets a tunnel trap, covering it with bundles of brushwood; and every stoat that comes along will explore so likely a lurking-place for a rabbit, and each naturally enters by the fatal passage. Those heaps of corn-rakings placed in the woods for pheasants form a favourite stoat-haunt. Here they find a warm, dry lair, and good hunting, for the corn attracts a crowd of small birds. Chancing once to right an overturned sheep-trough which had been lying inverted for some weeks, we disturbed the peace of a couple of stoats which had made the trough their home. They were gone like flashes of lightning, and though we overturned the trough again for their benefit, they had the good sense not to be caught napping a second time.
Not half the stoats that are caught are trapped by bait; for the only bait which is a certain charm is something which the stoat has caught itself, from the enjoyment of which it has been newly disturbed. Many stoats are shot. They pursue young blackbirds and thrushes which hover about the sides of country lanes; and when intent on dragging a blackbird up a bank they give the keeper the easiest of marks. Should his coming drive a feeding stoat to cover, he has only to wait within range for a few minutes for a chance to pull the avenging trigger. Stoats would soon be exterminated if they were attracted to baited traps for the sake of food. It would seem that they come chiefly from curiosity; for though they live on warm flesh and blood, when they fall victims to traps it is usually in those with the bait stale and strong in scent.
