656 THE CARNIVORES 



to add that the stoat, when angered, emits a most noisome and penetrating 

 smell. 



The young in England are generally produced during the months of April and 

 May, in a nest constructed in a hole in some dry bank. Professor Bell states that 

 the usual number of young in a litter is five ; Dr. Coues states that the number may 

 vary from a pair to as many as a dozen, although five or six may be taken as the 

 average. In America the stoat has occasionally been employed in the same manner 

 as the ferret for rabbit catching, and appears to take to the work readily. In most 

 parts of England stoats seem to be far less common than weasels, although the re- 

 verse is stated to be the case in Scotland. 



The fur of such individuals as assume in Britain the white winter dress is 

 always far inferior in quality to that of skins obtained from more northerly regions; 

 the inferiority consisting in the shorter and thinner hairs, and the less pure and 

 bright tint of the whole pelage. The importation of ermine skins into England 

 was formerly very large, more than 105,000 having been landed in the year 1833; 

 but at a later period, owing to depreciation in value, the Hudson's Bay Company 

 found that ermine skins were not worth the trouble of collection. At the present 

 day the ermine is much more abundant in British North America and Alaska 

 than it is in the United States ; the largest number of skins being obtained from 

 Alaska. 



In addition to the weasel and stoat, there are a number of more or 

 less closely-allied species inhabiting the Northern Hemisphere, while a 

 few descend below the Equator. In North America, inhabiting the region of the 

 Upper Missouri, we have the long-tailed stoat (M. longicauda], distinguished from 

 the ordinary stoat by its longer tail. The Brazilian, or bridled weasel (M.frenata}, 

 is a more southerly species, ranging from Texas to Brazil, and distinguished by the 

 head being darker than the body and blotched with white, and also by the retention 

 of the dark color throughout the year. A weasel from Patagonia may be only a 

 variety of this species. 



Asia also possesses a number of representatives of the group, such as the Hima- 

 layan weasel {M. hemachelana) , in which the under parts are brown and the tip of 

 the tail dark; the striped weasel (M. strigidorsus} , of Sikhim, in which there is a 

 pale stripe down the back; the yellow-bellied weasel (M. cathia), from the Central 

 and Eastern Himalayas; the pale weasel (M. alpind), ranging from the Altai 

 to Gilgit; as well as several others, some of which are confined to Tibet. 



Weasels were also well represented in past epochs of the earth's his- 

 18 tory, the remains of numerous species having been described from the 

 Micocene or Middle Tertiaries of Europe. Of those referred to the existing genus 

 Mustela, some differ from living weasels, and thereby agree with the larger martens, 

 in having four pairs of premolar teeth in both jaws ; while others have four pairs 

 of these teeth in the upper jaw, and only three in the lower jaw; and others again, 

 have the reverse of this arrangement. Another extinct weasel-like animal from the 

 same deposits, for which the name Plesictis has been proposed, is one of the forms 

 already alluded to as apparently connecting the weasels so intimately with the 

 civets. 



