124 MAMMALIA— ERMINE. 



belly. The eyes are small and black ; the ears short and roundish ; and the 

 nose is furnished with whiskers, like those of a cat. It moves by unequal 

 leaps, and can spring several feet from the ground, or run up a wall without 

 difficulty. 



When a weasel enters a hen-roost, it never meddles with the cocks or the 

 old hens ; it makes choice of the pullets, the young chickens, and these it 

 kills with a single stroke on the head, and carries away one after another. 

 The eggs it sucks with incredible avidity ; making a small hole at one end, 

 through which it licks out the yolk. In winter, it generally resides in some 

 granary, or hay-loft ; where the female often continues even in the spring, 

 in order to bring forth her young among the hay or straw. During this 

 time, the weasel makes war with the rats and mice, with more success than 

 the cat, since, following them into all their holes, it is next to an impossi- 

 bility for them to escape. It also climbs up to the pigeon houses, to the 

 nests of sparrows, &c, and commits great havoc. In summer, it removes 

 to some distance from the houses, always choosing the lower lands about 

 the mills and streams, hiding itself among the bushes, in order to catch the 

 birds, and not unfrequently taking up its habitation in the hollow of an old 

 willow. The female generally brings forth four or five. The young ones 

 come forth with their eyes shut, but in a little time they attain a sufficiency 

 of growth and strength to follow their mother to the chase. They attack 

 adders, water rats, moles, field mice, &c, and, traversing the meadows, 

 devour quails and their eggs. 



Like the polecat and the ferret, these animals have so strong a scent that 

 they cannot be kept in any place that is inhabited. As their own smell is 

 very bad, they seem to sustain no inconvenience from any foreign stench or 

 infection. A peasant took, one day, three weasels newly brought forth in 

 the carcass of a wolf, which had been suspended by its hind legs, from one 

 of the branches of a tree ; and though the wolf was almost entirely rotten, 

 the old weasel, nevertheless, brought moss, straw, and leaves, in order to 

 make a bed for her young ones in the cavity of the thorax. The weasel 

 may be tamed, and is then very good tempered, and excessively curious. 



THE ERMINE, OR STOAT.' 



The weasel with a black tail is called the ermine when it is white, and 

 the stoat, when it is red or yellowish. Though it is a less common animal 

 than the weasel, yet there are numbers to be found in the old forests, and 

 sometimes during the winter in the neighborhood of woody grounds. It is 

 always easy to distinguish it from the common weasel, because the tip of 

 its tail is uniformly of a deep black, while the edges of its ears, and the 

 extremities of its feet, are white. 



Mustela eiininea, Desm. 



