Penjyhania, Philadelphia. 217 



to be all on fire ; me however refolutely killed 

 it, but not before the polecat hacl filled the 

 cellar with a mod dreadful flench. The maid 

 v/as fick of it for feveral days ; and all the bread, 

 fiefti, and other provifions kept in the cellar, 

 were fo penetrated with it, that we could not 

 make the leaft ufe of them, and were forced to 

 throw them all away. 



FROM an accident that happened at New 

 York to one of my acquaintances, 1 conclude 

 that the polecat either is not always very my, 

 or that it fleeps very hard at night. This man 

 coming home out of a wood in a fummer even- 

 ing, thought that he faw a plant flanding before 

 him ; flooping to pluck it, he was to his cofl 

 convinced of his miflake, by being all on a fud- 

 den covered with the urine of a polecat, whofe 

 tail, as it flood upright, the good man had taken 

 for a plant : the creature had taken its revenge 

 fo effectually, that he was much at a lofs how to 

 get rid of the flench. 



HOWEVE& though thefe animals play fuch 

 difagreeable tricks, yet the Englifh, the Swedes, 

 the French, and the Indians, in thefe parts, tame 

 them. They follow their mailers like domeflic 

 animals, and never make ufe of their urine, ex- 

 cept they be very much beaten or terrified. 

 When the Indians kill fuch a polecat, they al- 

 ways eat its flefh ; but when they pull off its 

 fkin, they take care to cut away the bladder, 

 that the flefh may not get a tafte from it. I have 

 fpoken with both Englishmen and Frenchmen, 

 who allured me that they had eaten of it, and 

 found it very good meat, and not much unlike 



the 



