86 SQUIRRELS AND OTHER FUR-BEARERS 



had probably robbed the thrashers. They would 

 go up the trees with great ease, and glide ser- 

 pent-like out upon the main branches. When 

 they descended the tree, they were unable to 

 come straight down, like a squirrel, but went 

 around it spirally. How boldly they thrust their 

 heads out of the wall, and eyed me and sniffed 

 me as I drew near, — their round, thin ears, their 

 prominent, glistening, bead-like eyes, and the 

 curving, snake-like motions of the head and neck 

 being very noticeable. They looked like blood- 

 suckers and egg-suckers. They suggested some- 

 thing extremely remorseless and cruel. One could 

 understand the alarm of the rats when they dis- 

 cover one of these fearless, subtle, and circum- 

 venting creatures threading their holes. To 

 flee must be like trying to escape death itself. 

 I was one day standing in the woods upon a flat 

 stone, in what at certain seasons was the bed of 

 a stream, when one of these weasels came undu- 

 lating along and ran under the stone upon which 

 I was standing. As I remained motionless, he 

 thrust out his wedge-shaped head, and turned it 

 back above the stone as if half in mind to seize 

 my foot ; then he drew back, and presently went 

 his way. These weasels often hunt in packs like 

 the British stoat. When I was a boy, my father 

 one day armed me with an old musket and sent 



