CLASS MAMMALIA. 



'I 1 



FIG. 437. 



Jit/ate' la pen nan' fit. Fisher. 



to white in October and November, and back again in 

 March, except the extremity of the tail, which is always 

 black. At the south, the same species does not vary its 

 fur. These alterations are effected, not by shedding the 

 coat, but by changes in the color of the hair. Weasels 

 destroy mice, and hence 

 are beneficial to farmers.* 

 The fisher and the 

 Sable are native repre- 

 sentatives of the genus 

 Mustela (mus te'la). The 

 former is the largest of 

 the known species its 

 body sometimes measur- 

 ing three feet in length. 

 Though commonly called "the fisher," it has never been 

 known to fish. "The stealer" would be a much more 

 appropriate name, as it has been known to take the 

 round of a hunter's traps during the night and steal the 

 captured game. The native food of the Fisher consists 

 of small mammals and berries, particularly berries of the 

 mountain-ash. Once ranging throughout New England, 

 and south to Virginia, its present limit in the United 

 States east of the Mississippi River is mostly confined to 

 the northern regions of New England and New York. 



* Their carnivorous propensities are, however, not unfrequeutly displayed in 

 the hen-roost. An Ermine has been known to kill forty full-grown fowls in a 

 single night, as it devours the brain and sucks the blood, but never eats the flesh 

 of an animal. Its mode of attack is to pounce upon its prey transversely, and 

 piercing the brain at a single bite, to throw itself lengthwise upon the body, to 

 which it clings until the death of its victim. Its ability to bend the head at 

 right angles with the neck facilitates this mode of attack. Ermine skins have 

 long been used in England to decorate the robes of judicial officers, and hence 

 their association with ideas of moral purity. The expression "catch a weasel 

 asleep" is based upon the ease with which the animal may be caught when 

 sleeping, on account of the soundness of its slumbers. 



