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.
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