l6o TJie Home of the IVo/vere/u and Beaver. 



" Notwithstanding" all these mischievous and de- 

 structive habits, it is doubtful whether the ermine 

 is not rather a benefactor than an enemy to the 

 farmer, ridding his granaries and fields of many- 

 depredators on the product of his labour, that 

 would devour ten times the value of the poultry 

 and eggs which, at long and uncertain intervals, it 

 occasionally destroys. A mission appears to have 

 been assigned it by Providence to lessen the rapidly 

 multiplying number of mice of various species, and 

 the smaller rodentia. 



" Wherever an ermine has taken up its residence, 

 the mice in its vicinity for half a mile round have 

 been found rapidly to diminish in number. Their 

 active little enemy is able to force its thin 

 vermiform body into the burrows, it follows them 

 to the end of their galleries, and destroys whole 

 families. We have on several occasions, after a 

 light snow, followed the trail of this weasel through 

 fields and meadows, and witnessed the immense 

 destruction which it occasioned in a single night. 

 It enters every hole under logs, stumps, stone-heaps 

 and fences, and evidences of its bloody deeds are 

 seen in the mutilated remains of the mice scattered 

 on the snow. The little chipping or ground squirrel, 

 Tamias Lysteri, takes up its residence in the vicinity 

 of the grain fields, and is known to carry off in its 



