1 903 Notes on the Weasel Tribe 2 1 



leanness of Trout could not be entirely attributed to spawn- 

 ing, but must also be the result of starvation. 



One of these days, no doubt, when the seas and oceans 

 have been more thoroughly submitted to scientific investi- 

 gation, we shall know even more about the migrations of 

 fishes than we now know about those of birds. At present, 

 however, our minds are in a darkness scarcely less profound 

 than that of the uttermost depths of the sea. 



Notes on the Weasel Tribe (Mustelidae). 



By J. L. Bevir, M.A. 



"To stink like a fitcher" was a saying with which I was 

 very familiar as a boy, and I think I may take it as the text 

 of the few rambling remarks that I wish to make. There is 

 no doubt that the terms Fitchet, Fitchel, and Fitchew some 

 centuries ago were applied indiscriminately to all animals of 

 the Weasel tribe. The word is derived from the German 

 Visse, Fisse, or Vitche, which connoted a small animal with 

 an offensive smell. In Shakspear (" Troilus and Cressida," 

 v. 1) Thersites says he would rather be " an owl, a cat, or a 

 fitchew than Menelaus." The poet uses it again in "Othello" 

 (iv. 1) of Bianca, where lewdness would seem to be implied. 



Passing from that to Walton's ' Compleat Angler,' Venator 

 says, " And if I may descend to lower game, what pleasure 

 is it sometimes with gins to betray the very vermin of the 

 earth ! as, namely, the fitchet, the fulimart, the ferret, the 

 polecat, the mouldwarp." Here one seems to be arriving at 

 a scientific distinction of species ; but when one comes to 

 analyse the terms, one is left even more than ever in the 

 dark, very much as one is after reading that charming 

 chapter in Mr Long's book, ' Beasts of the Field,' on Kagax 

 the destroyer, which he calls simply a weasel. But was he ? 

 He had all the lust for killing for killing's sake which is 

 characteristic of the whole tribe, but from what he slew, I 

 ha' me doots he was a weasel as we know him. 



I would therefore start afresh and try and differentiate the 



