786 



POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



10,000,000. Guessing means, with many people, no attempt at any 

 sort of reasonable measurement, but rather an attempt to express their 

 guess in such a way as to afford them the greatest amount of mental 

 relief. And this relief can not be wholly accomplished without satis- 

 fying number preferences. Therefore, guessing is likely to exhibit, 

 in a greater or less degree, some habitual lines of preference subject 

 to predetermination. It may be that much practical advantage has 

 been taken of these facts in games of chance where number selec- 

 tions play an important part. 



CONCERNING WEASELS. 



By WILLIAM E. CRAM. 



~T"YT~HY is it that while popular fancy has attributed all sorts of 

 * * uncanny and supernatural qualities to owls and cats, and that 

 no ghost story or tale of horrid murder has been considered quite 

 complete without its rat peering from some dark corner, or spider 

 with expanded legs suddenly spinning down from among the rafters, 

 no such grewsome association has ever attached itself to the weasels, 

 creatures whose every habit and characteristic would seem to sug- 

 gest something of the sort? Now, fond as I am of cats, I should never 

 think of denying that they are uncanny creatures, to say the least. 

 But, suppose it was the custom of our domestic tabbies to vanish ab- 

 ruptly or even gradually on occasion, like the Cheshire cat after its 



interview with Alice, 

 that would at least 

 furnish some excuse 

 for the general preju- 

 dice against them, but 

 would really be no 

 more than some of our 

 commonest weasels do 

 whenever it serves 

 their purpose. I re- 

 member one summer 

 afternoon I was trout- 

 fishing along a little 

 brook that ran between pine-covered hills. As I lay stretched on the 

 bank at the foot of a great maple I saw a weasel run along in the 

 brush fence some distance away. A few seconds later he was stand- 

 ing on the exposed root of the tree hardly a yard from my eyes. I 

 lay motionless and examined the beautiful creature minutely, till sud- 



