St Valentine's Day. 197 



ground; I fear I shall neither make you nor your readers 

 believe that wheat-ricks are very often a complete honey- 

 comb, with the galleries made in them by mice and rats 

 extending from the very crown to the faggots on which they 

 are built; and that hundreds of these vermin are frequently 

 found in one rick. However, where there are many rats 

 there are few mice, and where there are many mice there are 

 few rats ; because the rats, being strongest, expel the mice. 

 To return to the weasel : his usual habitation is the gallery 

 of a field mouse on whom he has served a writ of ejectment, 

 and he usually chooses one in a bank in which the roots of 

 bushes are tolerably plentiful and strong, as he well knows 

 that these will effectually prevent his being dug out by any 

 evil-disposed person or persons : he also invariably takes the 

 precaution to select a burrow with two openings ; so that, if 

 one is besieged, he makes his exit at the other. I recollect 

 very well seeing a weasel go into a little round hole, scarcely 

 bigger than the hole of a wasp's nest ; I immediately put my 

 foot on it, and a lad who was with me I despatched for a 

 spade, determined to take the little fellow alive. The spade 

 came, we dug away, cut through roots, pulled down the 

 bank, and did no end of mischief; and, after two hours' labour, 

 found that the hole went right through the bank, and came 

 out on the other side. 



The weasel has an excellent nose, as I think I have pretty 

 clearly shown above ; but it is not exercised on the trail of 

 rats only. I have, on two occasions, seen rabbits pursued by 

 him, run down, and killed : one was on Munsted Heath, the 

 other on Highdown Ball. In both instances, the rabbit seemed 

 stupefied or fascinated by fright ; in one instance running 

 round and round, and not taking the right precaution for 

 escape; in the other, starting, stopping, and, as I fancied, 

 trembling with fear. When its prey is taken, the weasel 

 only eats the brain. Every book on natural history (since 

 the flood at least) charges him with sucking blood : this is 

 not the case, though its contradiction is of little consequence ; 

 I only mention it to show how they all copy from one 

 another. If the first writer about the weasel had denied him 

 a tail, I would venture any thing that no subsequent author 

 would have contradicted it; and why? because your smoke- 

 dried bookmakers on natural history, or any thing else, trust 

 to others' eyesight in preference to their own. 



[On the Mustelae tracking their prey by smelling, see also 

 Vol. V. p. 721., Vol. VI. p. 268. : and, on their habits gene- 

 rally, the mentions indicated in p. 208.] 



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