Retrospective Criticism, 297 



stack yard abounding with mice, the loss sustained is often enormous, and, 

 indeed, incredible to all who have not witnessed it; and there a couple 

 of weasels will do more good than twenty cats. [This is admitted in 

 Cambridgeshire, although it is there accused of destroying the poultry as 

 well. — J. D.] A mouse can enter nowhere into a corn stack, but where 

 a weasel can pursue and destroy it, and I have seen the whole interior of 

 such a stack strewed with the fragments of destroyed mice. All the bad 

 character of the weasel arises from confounding it with the stoat, which 

 well merits destruction wherever it can be met with ; but as to the innocent 

 and most useful weasel, the brood ought to be protected, and its residence 

 in the farm yard encouraged by every means. The black tail of the stoat 

 is a certain and constant distinction from the weasel. The white rat, men- 

 tioned by J. M. (p. 78.), is evidently nothing more than the winter 

 stoat, which, in that garb, is frequently seen about buildings and drains. 

 Natural history has long been overlaid with obscurity, by misapplied names 

 and false references ; and much remains to correct in that way, and much 

 of instructive information to be drawn from enquiries into the natural 

 habitudes and varied modes of existence of the several species, instead, as 

 at present, making it a meagre detail of personal descriptions. — J. Carr, 

 Alnwick, Jan. 8. 1832. 



The Weasel (\). 77.). — Sir, J. M. says of the'weasel, " In the north this 

 animal is called the foumart, and sometimes whitret, as if white rat." The 

 name whitret is entirely a new name to me ; but the foumart of the north of 

 England most decidedly is not the weasel, or the iliiistela vulgaris, but the 

 polecat, or ikfustela Putorius of Linnaeus ; which, from the strong smell it 

 emits, when frightened, is called the foumart, quasi foul marten, whilst the 

 pine marten (ilfustela abietina), which is a very scarce animal, at least in 

 the north of Yorkshire, is called the sweet marten, in contradistinction to 

 the foumart. This, Sir, is one of those instances which shows the neces- 

 sity of familiarising ourselves with the scientific names of animals ; for 

 otherwise you perceive it might be possible for two persons talking of the 

 foumart to be mutually misunderstanding the animal meant by the other. 

 The foumart of Yorkshire is the same animal which yields the fur, which, 

 when imported from abroad, is called fitch. — Thomas Thompson. Hully 

 February \Q.\^2>2. 



Of the Weasel (Mustela vulgaris). — J. M. says (p. 77.) that the weasel is 

 called foumart in the north. This is not the case in this neighbour- 

 hood certainly ; here the polecat (ikfustela Putorius) is called foumart (as if 

 foul-mart); in contradistinction to the marten * ( iy^./oiw«), which is called 

 sweet-mart. — T. G. Clitheroe, Lancashire, January 17. 1832. 



Weasel (Mustela vulgaris). — J. M. remarks (p. 77.) that in the north 

 the weasel is called foumart ; in Yorkshire, I believe, this name is ex- 

 clusively applied to the polecat (AI. Putorius). I know not whether the 

 fulimart of old Izaak Walton be the foumart or not; it is, however, 

 evidently not the polecat. See Sir J. Hawkins's note on p. 88. of Walton's 

 Angler. Yours, &c. — J\J. P. January 10. 



The Polecat (M. Putorius L.) is several times alluded to above. Re- 

 marks descriptive of its manners and habits, and a figure of its skull, occur 

 in Vol. IV. p. 10.; all adduced by Dr. Farrar, in relevance of his specula- 

 tions on the consonance of the anatomical structure of the car of the pole- 

 cat with the animal's habits of life. — J. D. 



Auditory Organs of the Hedgehog, Mole, and Water Shrew. — Sir, Dr. Farrar 

 (Vol. IV. p. 13.) was undoubtedly wrong jn supposing that our common 

 hedgehog (jErinaceus europae^us) has no external auditory tube ; but the 

 cause of his error is easily explained. C. S. E. (VoL IV. p. 382.) brings 

 forward a much more unaccountable conclusion, when he contradicts Dr. 



* Marten, a species of weasel; martin, a species of swallow. (Walker'' s 

 Dictionary.) A transposed application has hitherto occurred. — J. D. 



