64 OnNITHOLOGICAL, AND OTHER NOTES, 



reveal to hira their whereabouts, for his olfactory organs, unless indeed he 

 should chance to have been relieved from the inconvenience and unpleasantness 

 their sensitiveness sometimes occasions, by his having been privileged to 

 dwell in the immediate vicinity of a Currier's yard, a depot of "The London 

 manure company," Leadenhall market, or some other locality equally distinguished 

 for the salubrity of its atmosphere will prove an amply sufficient guide, he 

 has only to walk leisurely round any suspected tree, halting for a moment 

 at the point where his perambulations have brought the said tree 



"Betwixt the wind and hia nobility," 



and there will be no mistake as to whether the game he is in search of 

 abounds there or not. I do not know whether all kinds of trees are equally 

 to their taste, but those in which I have usually found them are the Oak, 

 the Elm, the Ash, and the Pear. In the garden of a cottager near here, 

 are many trees of the latter species, the whole of which, although they should 

 be just in their prime, are in a state of rapid decay, occasioned by the 

 ravages these creatures have made upon their interior, the principal stems 

 being in many places absolutely honey-combed, they seem in fact fated — would 

 that this fate were reserved exclusively for trees — to be bored to death. We 

 have often, when the wind has been in the right direction, scented these 

 creatures at distances ranging from twenty to fifty yards and upwards, so 

 powerful is the odour they emit when large numbers of them are congregated 

 together. 



"An affair" not ''of honour" betioeen a Weasel and a Babbit. — The following 

 occurrence, witnessed by my friend, Henry Eustace, Esq., and related by him 

 to me a short time ago, affords a striking proof of the keenness of scent 

 possessed by the Weasel: — Walking early one afternoon through one of his 

 fields, his attention was drawn to a Rabbit, {Lepus cunicidus,) which kept 

 dodging, now in, now out of the hedgerow, which bounded one side of the 

 field; suspecting, from seeing the animal astir at that unseasonable hour, for 

 Rabbits, in common with Owls, fashionable people, and other creatures of 

 nocturnal habits, affect to shun the glare of day, being seldom to be met with 

 till toward evening, that the privacy of its (h)earth must have been invaded, 

 or at any rate that something must have gone wrong in its domestic affairs, 

 my friend was induced to stand still, and watch more attentively. His sus- 

 picions soon proved to have been well founded, for presently he perceived a 

 Weasel, {Mustela vulgaris,) tracking, with deadly precision, the steps of the 

 fugitive, which having gradually become aroused to the consciousness that the 

 covert of the hedgerow afforded it no protection from the pursuit of its 

 dreaded enemy, at length boldly struck out towards the middle of the field, 

 where it secreted itself beneath the shelter of an overhanging tuft of long 

 grass. The Weasel having come to the point at which the Rabbit left the 

 hedgerow, paused but for a moment, and then guided by its keen unerring 

 sense of smell, pursued the same course which the Rabbit had taken; and 



