ntent, quartering back where it loses the scent--along again till
suddenly the head lifts--that motion of the snake before it strikes! The
trapper looks. Tail feathers, head feathers, stupid blinking eyes poke
through the fluffy snow-drift. And now the ermine no longer runs openly.
There are too many victims this time--it may get all the foolish hidden
grouse; so it dives and if the man had not alarmed the stupid grouse,
ermine would have darted up through the snow with a finishing stab for
each bird.

By still hunt and open hunt, by nose and eye, relentless as doom, it
follows its victims to the death. Does the bird perch on a tree? Up goes
the ermine, too, on the side away from the bird's head. Does the mouse
thread a hundred mazes and hide in a hole? The ermine threads every
maze, marches into the hidden nest and takes murderous possession. Does
the rat hide under rock? Under the rock goes the ermine. Should the
trapper follow to see the outcome of the contest, the ermine will
probably sit at the mouth of the rat-hole, blinking its beady eyes at
him. If he attacks, down it bolts out of reach. If he retires, out it
comes looking at this strange big helpless creature with bold contempt.

The keen scent, the keen eyes, the keen ears warn it of an enemy's
approach. Summer and winter, its changing coat conceals it. The furze
where it runs protects it from fox and lynx and wolverine. Its size
admits it to the tiniest of hiding-places. All that the ermine can do to
hunt down a victim, it can do to hide from an enemy. These qualities
make it almost invincible to other beasts of the chase. Two joints in
the armour of its defence has the little ermine. Its black tail-tip
moving across snow betrays it to enemies in winter: the very intentness
on prey, its excess of self-confidence, leads it into danger; for
instance, little ermine is royally contemptuous of man's tracks. If the
man does not molest it, it will follow a scent and quarter and circle
under his feet; so the man has no difficulty in taking the little beast
whose fur is second only to that of the silver fox. So bold are the
little creatures that the man may discover their burrows under brush, in
rock, in sand holes, and take the whole litter before the game mother
will attempt to escape. Indeed, the plucky little ermine will follow the
captor of her brood. Steel rat traps, tiny deadfalls, frosted bits of
iron smeared with grease to tempt the ermine's tongue which the