56 



MAMMALIA. 



She will defend her young with the utmost desperation against any 

 assailant, and sacrifice her own life rather than desert them; and 

 even when the nest is torn up b}- a dog, rushing out with great fury, 

 and fastening upon his nose or lips." '^' 



PUTORIUS ERMINEA (Linn.) Cuvier. 

 Ermine; Stoat; Large Weasel; ''White Weasel"; ''Brown WeaselT 



The Ermine is a common resident and, like the preceding species, 

 becomes white at the approach of winter. Like it also, it wanders 

 over different kinds of territor}-, and is frequently taken in traps set 

 for more valuable fur. In addition to the small game mentioned as 

 constituting the larder of the Least Weasel, the Ermine attacks and 

 slays animals many times its own size and weight. Thus the house 

 rat, squirrels, rabbits, and even the great northern hare fall easy 

 victims before its superior prowess. It is very fond of the ruffed 

 grouse, and its proneness to depopulate the poultry- yard is notorious. 

 Audubon tells us that he has 'known forty well-grown fowls to have 

 been killed in one night by a single Ermine." And on our own 

 premises a Stoat once killed fifteen doves in a single night! Rats 

 and mice also it slays by dozens when opportunity presents. Unlike 

 others of its tribe it does not, when game is plenty, devour the flesh 

 of its victims, but merely eats their brains or sucks their blood; and 

 when feasted to satiety continues its work of carnage till scarcity of 

 material, or bodily fatigue, induce it to take a temporary respite. 



Ever victorious, of pre-eminent assurance, reliant on its own superi- 

 ority and power, and confident of success, this indomitable little 

 animal is, in courage and ferocity, insatiate bloodthirstiness, and bold 

 audacity, almost without parallel in the history ot mammalia. Hun- 

 ger plays but little part in the slaughter, the war of destruction and 

 extermination, waged against its multifarious prey by this terrestrial 

 vampire, but pitiless, relentless, wasteful in the extreme, it kills for 



* Quoted in Coues' Fur-Bearing Animals, 1877, p. log. 



