y will occasionally catch a young rabbit or a leveret or suck
a few partridges' eggs, but the common food of the weasel consists of
such small animals as mice, moles, rats, small birds. In wheat or
other grain ricks, they ought to be encouraged, as they enter them
for the sake of the rats and mice they find there. I have been told by
a friend that in some parts of Wales the farmers look upon the weasel
as a friend, in consideration of the destruction it causes to mice and
rats. A gentleman living near Corwen killed a weasel, and expected to
receive the thanks of the farmer on whose land it had been killed; he
was surprised to find that the farmer was by no means grateful. In
this respect I think the Welsh farmers are wiser than the English
ones. Hawks sometimes prey upon weasels.

[Illustration: STOAT AND EGGS.]

Mr. Bell tells a story of a gentleman who was riding over his grounds,
once having seen a kite pounce upon some object on the ground and rise
with it in his talons. "In a few moments the kite began to show signs
of great uneasiness, rising rapidly in the air, or as quickly falling,
and wheeling irregularly round, whilst it was evidently trying to
force some hurtful thing from it with its feet." After a short but
sharp contest the kite fell suddenly to the ground, not far from where
the gentleman was watching the proceeding. On riding up to the spot
"pop goes the weasel," none the worse for his aerial journey, but the
kite was dead, for the weasel had eaten a hole under the wing. The
weasel makes its nest in a bank or in loosely-constructed stone walls;
three or four young ones are generally produced. Some years ago I
remember seeing a mother-weasel and three young playing about on a
bank. It was a most interesting sight. The weasel is much smaller than
the stoat, and you can tell it at once by its tail, which is entirely
red; that of the stoat has a black tip. But it is getting late and we
must hasten home.

[Illustration]

WALK III.

MAY.

To-day we will go and hunt for sticklebacks' nests; as it is calm I
think we shall have very little trouble in finding a few; a calm day
should always be chosen, because to find the nests of these little
fish it is necessary to have very sharp eyes, and to look very
closely, and you know if there is much wind the water is ruffled, and
then it is not easy to see objects in it. Let us start off, then, with
bait-can, canvass-net, and two or three large-mouthed b