AN EGG-STEALING STOAT.
It has long been a mystery how eggs are removed by various
vermin. I have seen unbroken ducks' eggs by a fox's earth and considerable collections of undamaged hens' eggs, and in one case partridges' eggs, removed by rats. A very queer ex- perience of a farmer's wife in Oxfordshire reveals how the feat is performed by a stoat. Her eggs had been mysteriously vanishing from a locked hen house. Last week as the poultry came to the shed she heard a rumbling within and stood to watch. Presently an egg was thrust out and followed by a stoat which " seized the egg in its front legs and proceeded to roll away with it, not sideways, but pitchpole, head over heels, thus protecting the egg from breaking." It made good speed with its burden. A good many people have seen the stoat turning Catherine wheels in a wild gymnastic that is sup- posed to excite the fatal curiosity of its victims. The per- formance as a genuine mode of motion is new to me—and to the rector of the parish, who is a naturalist. It is regrettable to announce that the egg stealer and his wife afterwards suffered the punishment of their athletic crime. Incidentally, I see that a white stoat, called an ermine, has been found in Surrey. The only white or nearly white stoat I ever saw myself was in the same neighbourhood.
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