In mid-November rabbits are at their fattest. Grass has been green,
sweet, lush, and growing; under the autumn sun, winter oats and wheat
have sprung inches high, and rabbits have been enjoying rare feasts.
The stoats, in turn, have found benefit in the autumn. It is on
full-grown rabbits that they now depend chiefly for food. No longer
can they feed on young birds; nor are small rabbits often to be met.
Rats show fight when attacked, and stoats prefer to tackle game without
power of resistance. Full-grown hares have too much staying power to
be hunted down, and they are too fond of making for the open fields to
be worth hunting. There are mice and field-voles, but the fat rabbits
of the woods are the most obvious of possible meals. No hunt is more
determined, ferocious, or relentless than when a stoat hounds a big
rabbit to its death.
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