ANIMAL AND PLANT LORE. 243 



knowledge of the fact. Wherever found, the weasel has, and I 

 suppose deservedly, a general reputation for great cunning and 

 alertness. But of all the various beliefs in its fabulous powers 

 and attributes so prevalent among earlier civilizations, few, so far 

 as I have been able to ascertain, seem to have descended to our 

 own time and country, though a good many still hold their 

 ground in various parts of the British Isles. In the north of Eng- 

 land it is popularly thought to be very unsafe to molest a weasel 

 or to kill or injure its young, lest the artful animal spit on the 

 offender and paralyze him, or else secretly spit into his food and 

 so poison him. A young emigrant from county Sligo, Ireland, 

 has told me that the peasants there have undoubting faith in this 

 capacity of the weasel to avenge itself by the voluntary ejection 

 of saliva that is poisonous to man. I wish I might reproduce the 

 rich brogue and open-eyed credulity with which this Irish boy 

 related several stories illustrative both of the revengeful disposi- 

 tion and of the reasoning ability of the weasel. But I can only 

 give, in an approximation to his language, two instances which 

 he assured me had come under his own observation. "A mon 

 in our part o' the country wonst fought wi' a weasel. She was 

 vurry mad un' she fought 'urn a long time, un' at las' she spet on 

 'uz shins. The mon was af eard then un' let her alone, un' I me- 

 self saah wheriver the weasel 'd spet on 'urn, uz shins turned 

 black in spots." " There was a lot o' min a-wurrkin' in a field, 

 un' wan uv 'm tuk some little young weasels out av their nist in 

 a wall that was theer. Thin whin th' ould weasel saah what was 

 done wi' 'urn, she just wint to the can o' milk that they had for 

 their dinner, and spet in th' can un' wint aff ; un' thin the mon 

 wint back wi' the little weasels afther he'd watched th' ould one 

 a bit, un' he lift thim in the nist. Un' thin th' ould weasel wint 

 as quick as iver she cud to the can o' milk un' spilt it so the min 

 cudn't dhrink any uv it. She wudn't be afther hurtin' 'urn whin 

 they'd taken the little wans back." The country people in county 

 Sligo believe that these agile carnivores are so very cunning that 

 they know all that men say about them, and so it is felt to be 

 unsafe even to speak ill of the little thieves. It is also there 

 thought to be very lucky to carry a purse made of a weasel's skin. 

 There is an old custom among the Irishwomen in county Kerry 

 to go out with bread or other food in their hands, to meet hunters 

 coming home with their ferrets, and after feeding the latter, to 

 keep " for luck " whatever crumbs are left over. 



An old-time remedy for the disease commonly known as " the 

 shingles " (herpes zoster) still survives in the United States, rang- 

 ing from Maine through Massachusetts and New York to Ohio, 

 and perhaps even more widely. The treatment consists in the ap- 

 plication of the skin of a freshly killed cat to the diseased surface 



