THE TRAGEDIES OF THE NESTS 87 



had eaten the other up, picking his bones clean, 

 and leaving nothing but the skeleton. 



The same farmer was one day in his cellar when 

 two rats came out of a hole near him in great haste, 

 and ran up the cellar wall and along its top till 

 they came to a floor timber that stopped their prog- 

 ress, when they turned at bay, and looked excitedly 

 back along the course they had come. In a moment 

 a weasel, evidently in hot pursuit of them, came 

 out of the hole, and, seeing the farmer, checked his 

 course and darted back. The rats had doubtless 

 turned to give him fight, and would probably have 

 been a match for him. 



The weasel seems to track its game by scent. A 

 hunter of my acquaintance was one day sitting in 

 the woods, when he saw a red squirrel run with 

 great speed up a tree near him, and out upon a long 

 branch, from which he leaped to some rocks, and 

 disappeared beneath them. In a moment a weasel 

 came in full course upon his trail, ran up the tree, 

 then out along the branch, from the end of which 

 he leaped to the rocks as the squirrel did, and 

 plunged beneath them. 



Doubtless the squirrel fell a prey to him. The 

 squirrel's best game would have been to have kept 

 to the higher treetops, where he could easily have 

 distanced the weasel. But beneath the rocks he 

 stood a very poor chance. I have often wondered 

 what keeps such an animal as the weasel in check, 

 for they are quite rare. They never need go hun- 



