12(j NORTH AMERICAN MUSTELIJ)^. 



cavity was separated into several compartments, arrangetl 

 with some care. One of these contained a heap of fresh mice 

 and shrews, another a quantity of the rejected skins, feet, and 

 tails of these animals. The nest was extremely foul. The cry 

 of the young is represented by Pallas to be like that of a 

 newly-born kitten. At the age often or twelve days, the little 

 animals were ashy above and white beneath. The mother, 

 courageous in defence of her oflspring, could scarcely be driven 

 away, and followed the captor of her brood for a long time. 

 The same author details the methods of capturing Ermine in 

 Siberia — by means of a noose set at the entrance of their 

 burrows, of spring-traps (at least so I understand by decipulis 

 compressoriis inescatis), and of a bent stick with slip-knot, set 

 off' with a thread crossing their pathway, and placed before a 

 hollow made in the snow where the bait is put. The skins, 

 used for vestments, were sent, he says, chiefly to China, Turkey, 

 and parts of Europe, being little used in Russia, where the 

 tails, the principal ornaments, were reserved by law as the ex- 

 clusive perquisite of royalty {privilegio Majestatis reservaUe). 

 The body was withdrawn from the skin through a single incision 

 across the posteriors; and it is added that not even those 

 tribes ''who eat all sorts of nasty things" will consume the 

 flesh, so thoroughly impregnated is it with the fetor. The 

 weight of a male is stated to be from five to eight ounces, 

 more or less; of the female, scarcely four. 



3Ir. Hogg's observations on the British Stoats, in Loudon's 

 Magazine, v., 718 et seq., as already mentioned, relate chiefly 

 to the changes of pelage as aff'ected by temperature rather 

 than season ; but further remarks, bearing upon some of the 

 habits of the animal, will be found interesting: — " Whilst walk- 

 ing along a footpath in a field, one day in the last week of 

 December, 1831, I observed a Stoat, or a Weasel, coming in 

 the same path towards me. I immediately stood still, and, as 

 he approached, I found that he carried his nose in the same 

 relative bearing to the ground, and was in the act of running 

 the scent of some bird, or other small animal, exactly after the 

 manner of a dog 'on scent', and in chase after game. His 

 whole attention being to the ground, with his head down, he 

 did not see me until close to me, when, suddenly catching 

 sight of me, he turned a little aside, stopped short, looked up, 

 and then scampered l)ack along the path, with his tail erected 

 into somewhat of a carve, from the black end of which I was 



