The horses in the waggons have at this season to be watched by a boy armed with a spray of ash, with which he flicks off the stoatsthat would otherwise drive the animals frantic.
Large numbers of stoats and weasels have also been liberated during the last fifteen years.
Stoats with reddish-brown backs and yellow bellies may often be seen hunting the rabbits, and the little weasels may sometimes be drawn out of their holes in the walls if one makes a squeaking noise with the lips.
As to the habit of weasels hunting in a pack, Waterton, the naturalist, mentions that he has seen two old stoats with five half-grown young ones hunting together.
Would you have him a common laughing-stock, mocked and jeered at by stoats and weasels?
Looking up, he saw two stoats leaning over the parapet of the bridge and watching him with great glee.
The stoats are on guard, at every point, and they make the best sentinels in the world.
The little Stoats hid in a hole in the mossy root of a tree, and as the ladies went by, one of them said: “I wonder what fur will be worn next winter?
And, according to a similar method, stoats and polecats, whenever possible, seize their victims near the base of the brain.
Stoats sometimes emit a disgusting odour when caught in a trap.
Weasels find sanctuary under the very flooring of the shanty, and stoats may hunt the covers at their will without fear of trap or gun.
But in spite of crows and magpies, stoats and weasels, and all the creatures of the wild that are too often branded as vermin, there is no want of pheasants in the cover.
And he gave the impression that every step would be his last out into the field; that he was always going to turn back next instant or the next, as he had done before when the stoats were not there.
One was that the stoats had stopped--a little bunch of peering heads on a group of craning necks on the edge of the ditch behind him.
The number of bones usually found in the basement indicates that a great variety of ducks, fish, hares, lemming, and stoats are regularly eaten, and that the average fox family does not want for food.
Both foxes and stoats are carnivorous and feed upon ptarmigan and hares, and they must be protectively coloured that they may catch their prey.
Vermin, however, do not quite agree among themselves: weasels and stoats are deadly enemies of mice and rats.
Along the back there were three rows of weasels and stoatsnailed through the head or neck to the planks.
A pair of stoats took up their abode in a well-stocked rabbit warren.
A pair of stoats or ermines, with their flecked coats just in the transition stage, have their haunt in the same wood.
Stoats and weasels are common on the mound, or crossing the road to the corn; they seem more numerous in autumn, and I fear leveret and partridge are thinned by them.
After these cases, I fear my readers would see but little of the romantic in stories of stoats mesmerising hares and rabbits, or foxes paralysing pullets.
Suddenly it occurred to her that the hare might have returned on his trail, have leapt aside and made off inland; the next instant she sprang over the backs of the stoats surrounding her, to return to the extreme point.
He thought he was alone, but he was not; the hare kept as close to his heels as a dog, while the stoats followed at a short distance.
Just before daybreak, however, there came into view, ghostly as the stoats but very much larger, a creature threading its way in and out among the furze bushes as it made for the Carn.
And thus was ushered in a night of tragedy with hare and stoats for actors, moor and cliff for setting.
Meanwhile the stoatswho had quitted their fastness were heading for the moor, tempted by the presence of some wading birds which they had disturbed the previous night on their return journey.
Yet widely as he roamed he never came across the packs of stoats which the host of birds had attracted, nor—a thing that excited his surprise—once encountered Grey Fox.
Two stoats followed, but failed to trace him to the forlorn refuge whence he was watching them.
He succeeded just in time to squat as the first of the stoats came galloping round the point and pulled up at the spot where the trail suddenly ended.
He was very sleepy, but he saw the stoats coming, immediately curled into a ball, and so awaited their onset.
The stoats on the other hand fell to silence, stopping motionless by the rocks.
The continual passing to and fro of the men cheered the hare in his niche, for it served to alarm the stoats and keep them at a distance.
No longer however does he move with full freedom of limb; the paralysing influence of the stoats is upon him.
The hare, far from being frightened by the sudden commotion, dogged the steps of the men and sat in a recess in the wall of the tunnel; the stoats who had followed dared not penetrate there; so they stood and watched him from the mouth.
At other times, too, I have seen solitary stoats and weasels (which may have had companions in the hedge) hunting along that mound, both before and since.
Looking up I saw three stoats gallop across the road, not more than ten yards away.
Some time passed, but the two stoats did not come out, and I saw no more of them: they probably retreated to the wheat as I left the gateway, and would remain there till the noise and jar of my footsteps had ceased in the distance.
Till that day I had never seen so many as five stoats together hunting in a pack.
But I got him to talk aboutstoats and weasels, and found that he had not himself seen so many together.
It would seem as if stoats and weasels had regular routes; for I now recollected that in the previous winter, when the snow was on the ground, I surprised two weasels almost exactly in the same spot.
But I may as well frankly tell you at once that nothing ever astonished me more than the scene which followed the attempt of the stoats and polecats to cross {209}the river in order to attack the owl's castle.
They charged down upon the army of stoats and polecats with a force and velocity which rendered resistance impossible.
Under these circumstances the witches had recourse to the stoats and polecats, who were a fierce and bloodthirsty race, and might be of essential service if they could be persuaded to undertake the matter.
Though from being on the ground they probably escape the notice of Magpies and Jackdaws and other egg-devouring birds, these eggs and the young that follow must often fall a prey to stoats and weasels, rats and hedgehogs.
The ditch was full of enemies, for hedges are the Fur Folk's highways from field to field, and foxes, cats, and stoats patrolled it from hour to hour.
Stoats and weasels are always shot when seen, they are frequently trapped, and in every manner hunted to the death and their litters destroyed--the last the most effectual method of extermination.
As any one passes such a heap of stones the young stoats peep from the crevices and cry "yac, yac," like barking, and so betray their presence.
The young stoatsin a day or two, not being fed, come out of the stones, and are shot, or knocked on the head.
Three or four traps are set in a circle round the spot, baited with pieces of rabbit, in which the old stoats are soon caught.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "stoats" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
