STOATS AND WEASELS.

Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 129, 15 October 1886, Page 4

STOATS AND WEASELS.

s TO THE EDITOK. i Sir — They who regard with apprehension tho consequences of the wholesale- importation of stoats into these islands havo cer- ". tainly very good grounds for doing so. Thoso animals breed very frooly, and would ' noon spread, more or less, ovor the wholo country. I am at a loss to know how tho Bottlers could, hopo to roar any ponl- • try. There aro many well-authentioatcd accounts of these forooions little boasts attacking full - grown mon, and it is cortain that any young child happening i to approach a nest of young ones would lose ' its life. Tho following short paragraph is taken from a Homo paper just received : — " A Weasel Attack.— Mr Maolaren, a gamekeeper of Wiok, Caithness-shire, has had a vory narrow esoapoof his life from an attack made on him by a number of weasels. Tho story of Bishop Hatto, if mythical in itself, has yet a foundation in faot. Bats have before now eaten ohildren, and sewermen have a wholesome terror of them when they coino in large numbers. In this case the weasels seem to havo attacked Maolaron much as a swarm of bees would have done ; and, had they reached his neck, ho might hare had a parlous time of it. Ho brought home with him eight of tho ferocious little creatures in corroboration of bis story. This is tho second time ho has been so assailed, it seems. On each oacasion ho has had to fight desperately." lam, &0., D.H.J.