WEASELS AND THEIR HABITS 



BY DR. R. W. SHUFELDT, C. M. Z. S. 



NOTWITHSTANDING the fact that there are many 

 species of weasels, their habits are quite similar. 

 The principal differences are due to climate, to the 

 character of the country in which they live, and to food. 

 The habits of the black-footed ferret (Fig. i), the 

 largest of all the American weasels, are different from 

 those of the least weasel (Fig. 3) the smallest of the 

 type. The smaller weasels are decidedly more slender, 

 with longish, cylindrical bodies and snake-like aspect, the 

 animals themselves being extremely active and muscular, 

 while the larger species 

 are more robust 

 rather less active. 



All the weasels, and 

 there are upwards of 

 forty species of them, 

 are distinctly carnivo- 

 rous; and so far as the 

 writer is aware, it is not 

 known that they ever 



of a far larger number of victims than they need for 

 food. They kill, and keep on killing, just for the fun 

 of it ; and it is only during the cold winter weather, when 

 game becomes scarce, that they conceal for future con- 

 sumption the bodies of some of the animals they have 

 slain. 



When deer mice and other small animals are abundant, 

 a weasel makes great havoc among them, killing one after 

 another, merely to suck a part of the fresh blood, and 

 then abandoning the bodies for some other animal to 



ONE OF THE RAREST AS 

 WELL AS ONE OF THE 

 LARGEST WEASELS 

 KNOWN IS THE BLACK- 

 FOOTED FERRET (Putorius 

 nigripes). 



Fig. 1. This specimen is in 

 the exhibition series of the 

 United States National Mu- 

 seum. It is a large animal, 

 and its general coat is of a 

 pale clay color, except the 

 tip of its tail and its feet, 

 which are black. It possesses 

 all the habits of its kind, and 

 is doubtless a perfect terror 

 to the small mammals of the 

 regions it inhabits. 



THERE ARE QUITE A NUMBER OF SPECIES OF WEASELS ON THE PACIFIC COAST, AND THIS FORM 



IS ONE OF THEM 



Fig. 2. This long-tailed, long and slender species is known as the Washington Weasel, being an inhabitant of 

 that State (Putorius washingtoni). It is also in the National Museum exhibition series. 



touch anything else, as berries, or any herb or vegetable 

 growth. All of the smaller weasels live principally upon 

 mice, and these they are able to follow straight down into 

 their holes. Through such places they squirm in and 

 out with as much ease as the mice themselves, the latter 

 being thoroughly terrorized when it becomes known to 

 them that there is a weasel in the neighborhood. In the 

 northern regions the larger species prey chiefly on rabbits 

 and lemmings, and on some birds of a corresponding size, 

 while further south the big, long-tailed weasel subsists 

 largely on chipmunks, gophers, and other rodents of 

 equal size. 



No mammal in the entire world, great or small, can 

 compare with the weasels as hunters. They hunt their 

 prey incessantly, following it by scent, and take the lives 



pick up and devour. On 

 several occasions the 

 writer has seen weasels 

 chasing deer mice on the snow ; and as one of the latter 

 is by no means a poor leaper, almost as good as the 

 weasel itself, such a chase becomes quite interesting. It 

 is extremely rare for the mouse to make good its escape ; 

 for, even should it reach an old stone wall or other 

 place of refuge, the bloodthirsty hunter follows directly 

 after it, squirming his way through crevices and chinks, 

 and among stones, with surprising ease and rapidity, 

 until at last one hears from within the dismal squeals 

 of the captured mouse, announcing the result of the run. 

 The writer once shot a New York weasel (Fig. 10) in 

 the very act of capturing a mole, and the stench that the 

 former was guilty of was something dreadful; in its way 

 it was almost as bad as what a skunk accomplishes under 

 similar circumstances. When hungry, and intending to 



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