We heard a gamekeeper say that he would be better pleased to harbour
a litter of cubs on his beat than a litter of stoats. But this was
too flattering a compliment to the stealthiest of the keeper's foes:
foxes would smile at a comparison between the havoc they play with
game interests and all the robber-work of stoats and weasels combined.
No doubt the gamekeeper's idea was that while foxes may be found and
dealt with according to their deserts without difficulty, stoats may be
on the ground and do endless damage before they are detected. With a
litter of cubs on his ground the keeper, if minded, may promptly put an
end to the nuisance. But he may never congratulate himself that there
are no stoats. Where there is game, there stoats must be also. Just
where they lurk the keeper may never know; and every art may fail to
catch these sly thieves.
The keeper does not wait to see a stoat before he sets his traps;
usually when a stoat is caught he sees it for the first time. During
the mating season, in the early spring, stoats are trapped most easily.
When one has been caught it serves as a lure to attract others. The
body is suspended just out of the reach of curious relatives and
friends, and a neatly hidden trap is set beneath it. Since rabbits
supply the staple food of stoats, they serve as bait: anything that
suggests newly done rabbit work is almost sure to attract the attention
of any passing stoat. So after setting a trap just inside a hole in
the track of stoats, the keeper with his stick scratches up a little
fresh soil on each visit to the trap, to imitate what he calls the
"ferricking" of a rabbit. A hollow underwood stump is always a likely
place for a stoat. Rabbits love to sit in such stumps, and a stoat
never misses a chance to investigate them, surprising the rabbit before
he can scoot away, and then himself lodging in a recess of the stump,
on a cosy couch made from the fur of his victim.
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