A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK which there was a run. I once caught seven, two old and five young ones, in a barn there. On two or three other occasions I have turned out burrows on the fen, which have contained eels and frogs generally half de- composed.' In the Zoologist, 1888, p. 222, Mr. Frere writes : ' I have seen their tracks in the snow not many years ago, and now I hear that there was one this winter within two hundred yards of my house.' Roydon and Diss are both in Norfolk, but have only the river Waveney between them and Suffolk. I am indebted to Captain Page of Woolpit for the particulars of a strange incident which occurred at the old rectory of that parish, which is situated in the west central part of the county. The house was one of the old parsonages built in Queen Elizabeth's time, having no cellar beneath. In June 1852 the inmates were driven from their drawing-room by a most evil and unaccountable smell. At length it was supposed the nuisance must be caused by some dead animal, and the car- penter was sent for to take up the floor boards when a living polecat was found com- fortably ensconced underneath them. Mr. H. Lingwood has a specimen from Bricett near Bildeston obtained in 1847. In the neigh- bourhood of Letheringham in east Suffolk it was also not uncommon at that time, and lingered until several years later. Polecats inhabited Ubbeston Wood near Halesworth (then unpreserved for game) within the memory of the writer's father, who also recollects seeing the mouths of their burrows strewn with bones and feathers. This would probably be from about 1824 to 1830 or later. A gamekeeper informed Mr. C. Whiting that while living at Crowfield about 2 J miles from Coddenham, between i860 and 1872, he caught about fourteen pole- cats.* During the last two years of that period only one or two were killed, and he believes these animals to be now extinct in that neighbourhood. 16. Stoat. Putorius ermineus, Linn. Bell — Mustela erminea. In the neighbourhood of Tostock in west Suffolk, the Rev. J. G. Tuck has often heard the local name of 'miniver' used for this animal. The Re v. E. T. Daubeny, too {Nature Notes, October 1903, p. 213), in a list ot local names in use in the neighbourhood of Market Weston near Thetford, says : 'In winter the stoat is a "minifer."' In the eastern part of the county it is, or used ' For this information I am indebted to Mr. H. Miller of Ipswich. frequently to be, called the ' weasel,' while the true weasel has another name given it. No animal is more universally detested by gamekeepers than this bold, determined little marauder ; and its numbers have been so much reduced by traps, guns and other means, that it is far less common than it was thirty years ago. In the game-preserving districts of east Suffolk, one rarely gets a chance now of watching the stoat hunting along the side of a hedge or ditch, and ad- miring the grace and elegance of his move- ments as he comes bounding along, full of life and animation, now and again raising himself to his full height, in order to extend his horizon. In spite of its bad reputation, this animal is an excellent and accomplished rat- catcher, and so atones for many of its misdeeds. The advantage it possesses through its ability to follow its prey into their holes, combined with remarkable strength, agility and courage, makes it a formidable foe to the rat. Stoats haunt the banks of rivers and streams, especi- ally where there are beds of reeds or osiers, preying upon rats, water voles, waterhens, etc. On the beach, sand hills and rough ground between Sizewell and the Dunwich clifls, where they were comparatively safe from the keepers, both stoats and weasels used to be fairly common. They also visit at times the river * walls,' in pursuit of the rats and moles which there do much damage ; but even here their relentless enemy follows them, setting baited traps for their destruction. The stoat takes the water boldly, swimming very fast, and with a good deal of its body above the surface. Where rabbits abound, these animals are soon attracted to the spot. Mr. W. G. Clarke informs me that in the year 1893, 200 stoats were trapped upon Thetford warren in six weeks. Up to the early part of the last century, this animal must have been very common. In the list of vermin killed in a single year (181 1) by a gamekeeper in Suffolk (quoted in the account given here of the marten) the number of stoats destroyed is 416. Every winter, whether severe or other- wise, a few white or rather nearly white specimens find their way into the bird-stuffers' shops, most of them retaining a few patches of colour, especially round the eyes and along the spine, the black tip of the tail being of course always present. One in perfect winter dress, killed in Suffolk, was exhibited by Dr. Crisp at a meeting of the Zoological Society in i860.' The extraordinary audacity so characteristic of the weasel family is very conspicuous in the stoat, who will sometimes Zoohffi/, i860, p. 6913. 222
