its
own audacity; and in a state of great apparent agitation wheeled round,
and taking precipitately to flight, soon put two or three yards of safe
space between itself and its formidable but wingless foe. We now
forcibly hoped 'the better part of valour' might be allowed to prevail.
But no! the tiny creature stood--it ventured to look--there glared still
in view the malignant form. What could the poor animal do but make a
second brilliant onset, in which it again eluded the outstretched claw
of its enemy, and, as before, was successful in effecting a retreat?
'Surely,' we mused, 'no further knight-errantry will be attempted: the
most exacting would consider this enough.' But we were mistaken. Again
and again did the fly return to the combat, till in an unguarded moment
it flew exactly into the open claw, which closing, rendered escape
impossible. The generosity of a Mouravieff was scarcely to be looked for
in the scorpion, which, as will be readily believed, lost no time in
devouring its gallant captive. Possibly the fly may have been partly
dazzled by the glare of the lamp. But undoubtedly it was in the main
fascination, induced by the sight of the dread figure on the wall, that
impelled it to begin the unequal contest, which could terminate only in
the loss of its life."[179]

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. The former are common enough,--the wretched hare
creeping along with a bewildered look, as if its back were broken, or
screaming in helpless immobility. I will confine myself to a single
narrative furnished by Mr Henry Bond, to whom this chapter is already
indebted for one case. As he was walking on the hillside above West
Creech Farm, in Penbeck, Somerset, last August, where the down is
scattered with very low furze-bushes, his attention was arrested by a
cry of distress. It proceeded from a rabbit which was cantering round in
a ring, with a halting gait. He watched it for some minutes; but, as
the circle became smaller, and the rabbit more agitated, he perceived a
stoat turning its head with the rabbit's motion, and fixing its gaze
upon it. He struck a blow at the stoat, but missed it; its attention was
thus withdrawn from its intended victim, which instantly ran away with
great vigour in a straight direction.[180]

This is a remarkably good case; the circular movement of the rabbit; the