3 OCTOBER 1908, Page 17

The Daily Chronicle of Tuesday reports, on what it says

is indisputable evidence, an extraordinary case of a stoat attack- ing human beings. A young woman was coming out of the gate of Nynehead Vicarage, near Wellington, in Somersetsh ire, when she was attacked by a large stoat. She kicked it away and mounted her bicycle. On riding away she was astonished to see the stoat following her, but as the road was downhill she left it easily behind. At the bottom of the hill is a cottage, and on reaching this the stoat sprang at a four-year-old child who was in the road. It attacked repeatedly, and bit the child on the thumb. The mother carried her child indoors. The stoat followed them, but was then killed. Stoats are notorious for their courage, which their name signifies, and they fre- quently attack animals much larger than themselves, but it is not often that one hears of them making a spontaneous attack on human beings. Stories, however, are related of stoats being met moving in bodies of ten or twelve, and of these "packs" attacking people with great persistency.