1890-91.] Natural History Notes. 427 



only a few minutes before. The distracted mother, therefore, 

 on hurrying to the spot, found the boy with the dead weasel 

 in his lap, and he fondling and caressing it. 



Having done justice to our friend's descriptive powers, we 

 next learn the interesting fact that " 'whuttrets ' are no a bad." 

 This is deduced from the fact that one summer he came upon 

 a weasel carrying a young one in her mouth. He is ex- 

 ceedingly hazy as to how the young one got killed, and does 

 not appear to care to go into particulars, so that we take it 

 he is not proud of his own share in the transaction. The 

 young one, however, v:as killed somehow, and, when taken in 

 the hand, felt, as our friend expresses it, " for a' the world like 

 a butter-ba'." The weasel, which had stuck to her young one 

 as long as possil)le, had ultimately to take refuge in a hole, 

 from which slie presently emerged, and fearlessly ran up to 

 within a few feet of the narrator, who, not exactly relishing 

 the aspect of things, threw the dead young one to the mother. 

 She at once took it tenderly in her mouth, and proceeded to 

 carry it away. It was now very evident that she had much 

 greater difficulty in managing the dead body than when the 

 little creature was in life, and our friend's courage having once 

 more returned, she had soon to drop it again, as a mere act of 

 self-preservation, and take refuge in an old stone-dyke. But 

 she immediately reappeared, and followed the boy again, when 

 he, not liking the look of the " whuttret," finally gave up the 

 dead. " So you see," he concludes, " ' whuttrets ' are no a bad." 



As our friend at this stage exhibits a tendency to return once 

 more to his interrupted lecture on the habits of the wild duck, 

 we think it best to bid him a hurried farewell, and retrace 

 our steps to the town. The young naturalist calls after us 

 to look in at the keeper's cottage in passing, and examine a 

 funny rabbit's head he has there. This we do, and find that, 

 owing to a malformation of two of the front teeth in the upper 

 jaw, which appear to have grown backwards into the ani- 

 mal's mouth, the two corresponding front teeth in the lower 

 jaw have grown straight out, giving the animal the appearance 

 of possessing tusks. It then occurs to us that if the upper 

 teeth grew at the same rate backwards as the lower ones 

 outwards, the death of the animal in a short time would 

 result. We examine the head more carefullv, and find that 



