239 NATURAL HISTORY. 



removes to some distance from the houses, always 

 choosing the lower countries about the mills and streams 

 hiding itself among the bushes, in order to catch birds 

 and not unfrequently taking up its habitation in the 

 hollow of an old willow. The female generally brings 

 forth four or five. The young ones come forth with 

 their eyes shut, but in a little time they attain a suf- 

 ficiency of growth and strength to follow their dam to 

 the chase. They attack adders, water rats, moles, 

 field-mice, &c. and, traversing the meadows, devour 

 quails and their eggs. 



Like the pole-cat and the ferret, these animals have 

 so strong a scent that they cannot be kept in any 

 place that is inhabited. As their own smell is very 

 bad, they seem to sustain no inconvenience from any 

 foreign stench or infection. A peasant in my neigh- 

 bourhood took, one day, three weasels newly brought 

 forth, in the carcase of a wolf which had been suspend- 

 ed by its hind-legs from one of the branches of a tree ; 

 and though the wolf was almost entirely rotten, the old 

 weasel brought grass, straw, and leaves, in order to make 

 a bed for her young ones in the cavity of the thorax. 



THE ERMINE, OR STOAT. 



THE weasel with a black tail is called the ermine 

 when it is white, and the stoat when it is red or yellow- 

 ish. Though it is a less common animal than the weasel, 

 yet there are numbers to be found in the old forests, 

 and sometimes during the winter in the neighbourhood 

 cf woody grounds. It is always easy to distinguish 

 it from the common weasel, because the tip of its tail 

 Is always of a deep black, while the edge of its earg,. 

 and the extremities of its fset are white. 



