Doe and Hope

Description

Fresh to the market, the pair of skeletal specimens, preserved and rod mounted on a ebonised rectangular wooden pedestal base showing a mature stoat feasting upon a mole, survives from the middle period of the twentieth century.

The skeletons are in good overall order as is the base, with some general wear commensurate with age. There are one or two mall areas of repair.

The alert, inquisitive stoat is one of the fiercest of predators. It can move fast, maybe up to twenty miles an hour. The stoat is a true carnivore, although it will eat birds' eggs, and feeds mainly on small mammals such as rabbits, hares, mice, voles and shrews or whatever is readily available in its territory. Birds are also eaten, and when other prey is scarce, they will even eat earthworms, large insects and carrion. The mole is not seen very often but it is one of our best-known small mammals and though moles emerge mainly at night they are still vulnerable to predators even though some mammals find them distasteful. Not stoats! or tawny and barn owls.

Rather Jurassic in appearance, this is an impressive mount, depicting an everyday occurrence, but one we as humans hardly ever get to visualise.