The Use of the Stoat
Whether Lewis Carroll got an answer to his repeated ques- tion, " Do cats eat bats ? " I do not know ; but I have received quite a number of convincing answers to the query "Do stoats .eat rats ? " and one to the question "Do weasels eat rats ? " The matter,' nevertheless, is not yet quite 'explicit. The witnesses who have had ocular evidence of fights against rats—in all of which the stoat, often after several rounds, won, speak of" young" rat's not yet fully grown. Whether a stoat would attack a big, fully grown rat I doubt. Certainly a weasel would not ; but the accounts add great weight to the view that the stoat and the weasel, both, are enemies of the rat by instinct, and harry it. It is sufficient to know that they attack the young. ' Those who destroy their stoats and weasels (and of course their foxes and hawks and owls) upset the natural balance of nature ; and for the well-being of mankind —if that is our aim—the undue mastery of the rat is among the worst economic misfortunes. How many million pounds worth of damage a 'year do' the statisticians lay to their credit ?
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