a straight open chase--a
little creature about the length of a man's hand, with a tail almost as
long, a body scarcely the thickness of two fingers, a mouth the size of
a bird's beak, and claws as small as a sparrow's. It gallops in lithe
bounds with its long neck straight up and its beady eyes fastened on the
flying water-rat. Splash--dive--into the water goes the rat!
Splash--dive--into the water goes the ermine! There is a great stirring
up of the muddy bottom. The water-rat has tried to hide in the
under-tangle; and the ermine has not only dived in pursuit but headed
the water-rat back from the safe retreat of his house. Up comes a black
nose to the surface of the water. The rat is foolishly going to try a
land race. Up comes a long neck like a snake's, the head erect, the
beady eyes on the fleeing water-rat--then with a splash they race
overland. The water-rat makes for a hole among the rocks. Ermine sees
and with a spurt of speed is almost abreast when the rat at bay turns
with a snap at his pursuer. But quick as flash, the ermine has
pirouetted into the air. The long writhing neck strikes like a serpent's
fangs and the sharp fore teeth have pierced the brain of the rat. The
victim dies without a cry, without a struggle, without a pain. That long
neck was not given the ermine for nothing. Neither were those muscles
massed on either side of his jaws like bulging cheeks.

In winter the ermine's murderous depredations are more apparent. Now the
ermine, too, sets itself to reading the signs of the snow. Now the
ermine becomes as keen a still hunter as the man. Sometimes a whirling
snow-fall catches a family of grouse out from furze cover. The trapper,
too, is abroad in the snow-storm; for that is the time when he can set
his traps undetected. The white whirl confuses the birds. They run here,
there, everywhere, circling about, burying themselves in the snow till
the storm passes over. The next day when the hunter is going the rounds
of these traps, along comes an ermine. It does not see him. It is
following a scent, head down, body close to ground, nose here, there,
threading the maze which the crazy grouse had run. But stop, thinks the
trapper, the snow-fall covered the trail. Exactly--that is why the
little ermine dives under snow just as it would under water, running
along with serpentine wavings of the white powdery surface till up it
comes again where the wind has blown the snow-fall clear. Along it runs,
still i