. Wild nature's ways . ictim. My efforts at securing pictorial records of hisdoings became too persistent for stoat patience,and, ruefully giving up his prize, he returned tothe burrow from which he had recently less than five minutes there was another piercingscream, and rabbits of all ages began to bolt,helter-skelter, north, south, east, and west. Ahalf-grown one came and sat for a moment infront of me. The quivering nostrils and blazingeyes of the little fugitive told a pathetic tale ofterror. It was followed almost immediately byits relentless foe, but, contrary to expectation,
. Wild nature's ways . ictim. My efforts at securing pictorial records of hisdoings became too persistent for stoat patience,and, ruefully giving up his prize, he returned tothe burrow from which he had recently less than five minutes there was another piercingscream, and rabbits of all ages began to bolt,helter-skelter, north, south, east, and west. Ahalf-grown one came and sat for a moment infront of me. The quivering nostrils and blazingeyes of the little fugitive told a pathetic tale ofterror. It was followed almost immediately byits relentless foe, but, contrary to expectation,instead of giving up the struggle and abandoningitself to helpless fascination, it bolted, and Iwatched it run without stopping in an almoststraight line for four or five hundred yards. Thestoat followed for about half the distance, andthen gave up the chase, and returning to theburrow, I saw him no more. Whilst photographing loaches and bullheadsin shallow parts of the River Eden on one occasion, 86 WILD XATURES BULLHEAD SWALLOWING LOACH. a boy who was reflecting light for hk^ witli amirror, suddenly exclaimed : I can see a bullywith a tail at either end of his body, mister. Thissomewhat startling assertion prov^ed to be liter-ally true. The fish had just caught a loachmore than half its own length, and had succeededin swallowing all of it except the portion shownin our illustration. In the days of my youth I have tickled troutwith bullheads, members of their own kind, andeven water shrews in their mouths, but how sucha slow, easy-going fish as a bullhead could makeone so nimble and vigorous as a loach captiveis to me a mystery, I must confess. It mighthave been sickly or injured, of course ; but noevidence supporting such a theor} could betraced wlien the p»-*soner was released from itscaptors jaws. The behaviour of even the lowliest of wild CURIOSITIES OF WILD LIFE. 87 creatures is sometimes difficult, if not impossible,to explain. Requiring a photograph of a frogon
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