108 Dr. Buchanan on the wound of the Ferret. 



garded as the products of the same organizative or plastic force : which, act- 

 ing in one way, employs vessels and cells for its instruments, and produces, 

 within the body, the innumerable structures of which animals and vegetables 

 are made up ; and, acting in another way, employs for its instruments muscu- 

 lar fibres under the direction of the nervous system, and produces, without 

 the body, structures which bear the same impress of regularity and beauty 

 as those within it, and co-operate with them to the same ends — the pre- 

 servation of the individual and the species. Corals, and other polypidoms, 

 may be considered as standing in the very same relation to the swarms of 

 zoophytes which people them, in which the honey-comb does to a swarm 

 of bees. Both are structures external to the bodies of the animals which 

 produce them, and both are the products of the same organizative power : 

 the only difference being, that in the one case this formative power employs 

 its ordinary instruments — cells, and, possibly, vessels — while, in the other, 

 it employs the more unwonted apparatus of muscular fibres. 



I have more recently had an opportunity of examining several animals 

 killed by the Ferret. I found that instead of there being only one wound, 

 there are always several, as might, indeed, have been inferred from the 

 mechanism of the jaws, and their being armed with four tusks. The 

 wounds are so minute as to be imperceptible externally, unless one of the 

 tusks has pierced the jugular or some other superficial vein, so as to stain 

 the surrounding skin with blood ; but as this, although generally, does not 

 always happen, there may be no external mark visible. But, on dissect- 

 ing off the skin, the wounds become at once apparent in the cellular and 

 muscular substance beneath. The injury done to the upper part of the 

 spine is, therefore, more extensive than I had at first supposed. It is also 

 less uniform in its seat : as I more than once found that the tusk had 

 pierced the cranium, and gone deep into the back part of the brain. The 

 mode of attack is also very various, according to the relative strength of 

 the combatants; but the struggle is always brief; and the Ferret never 

 remains after it to suck the blood. 



From these observations, confirmed as they were in all essential respects 

 by many others made under the eye of an intelligent friend, I was dis- 

 posed to conclude that the vulgar belief of the Ferret destroying its victims 

 by blood-sucking was erroneous ; and that it had, most probably, arisen 

 from the appearance of the dead animals, which exhibit commonly no 

 mark of injury but a small wound, surrounded by a bloody patch on the 

 neck. Now, the very same appearance would be produced by a leech 

 fastening on the neck : and hence, most probably, it was inferred that the 

 leech and the Ferret practised the same mode of attack. This opinion has, 

 however, received the sanction of the highest authorities in natural his- 

 tory. Buffon says,* — "The Ferret is naturally the mortal enemy of 

 the rabbit. On presenting a rabbit, even dead, to a young Ferret, 

 that has never seen one before, it throws itself upon the body, and 



* Histoire Naturelle, Vol. vii. p. 211. 



