INDEX. 389 



and mice better than cats ; also small birds ; in cultivated 

 lands it thins the number of hurtful vermin ; never cries but 

 when struck ; all the kind have glands near the anus, secret- 

 ing a substance fetid in some, and a perfume in others ; 

 this most offensive in summer, and insufferable when irritat- 

 ed ; one sort in America is by sailors called the stinkard ; 

 confined to a cage is ever in uneasy agitation ; must have 

 leave to hide itself; eats only by stealth, and will not touch 

 the food until it begins to putrefy; the female makes an 

 easy bed for her young, and generally brings forth from 

 three to five at a time, and with closed eyes ; account of 

 a weasel's forming her nest, and bringing forth her young, 

 in the putrid carcass of a wolf, 69. The white ermine found 

 in Great Britain is called the white weasel ; its fur among 

 us of no value, 76. Of the weasel kind the martin the most 

 pleasing, 83. The boldest and most useful of all is the 

 ichneumon, 91. 



Weather, the moist alone prevents evaporation, i. 316. 



Weathercocks often erroneous in regard to the currents of air, 

 i. 300. 



Weeds, floating over great tracts of the sea, serve as suste- 

 nance for many fish bearing similitude with such vegetables, 

 i. 352. 



Weever, the trachinus, a prickly-finned jugular fish, its des- 

 cription ; the sting given by its back fin is poisonous, v. 

 119. 



Weight (of the human body) often found to differ from itself; 

 instances of it ; the difference often amounts to a pound, or 

 sometimes to a pound and a half; not easy to conceive 

 whence this adventitious weight is derived, i. 4-35. The 

 porters of Constantinople carry burdens of nine hundred 

 pounds weight ; a man able to raise a weight of two thou- 

 sand pounds ; a horse will not carry upon its back above 

 two or three hundred pounds ; whence this seeming supe- 

 riority comes, 436. 



Well (burning), at Brosely, now stopped, had a fire-damp 

 in it, which would kindle with the flame of a candle, i. 76. 

 Some continue full, affected neither by rains nor droughts, 

 242. 



Wert (Sebald), a traveller, confirms the existence of giants, 

 on a coast of South America, towards the Straits of Ma- 



fellan, ii. 113. 

 ale, the largest animal known : no precise anatomy of this 

 fish yet given : seven different kinds, distinguished by ex- 

 ternal figure, or internal conformation : are gregarious ani- 

 mals : make migrations from one ocean to another, and 

 generally resort where they have the least disturbance: great 

 Greenland whale, its description : from sixty to seventy feet 

 long : the head one-third of its bulk : its hearing is acute : 



