WEASEL KIND. 69 



quantity of wool or hay, in which it may conceal 

 itself, and where it may carry whatever it has got 

 to eat ; which, however, it will not touch until 

 it begins to putrefy. In this state it is seen to 

 pass three parts of the day in sleeping ; and re- 

 serves the night for its time of exercise and eating. 

 In its wild state, the night is likewise the time 

 during which it may be properly said to live. At 

 the approach of evening, it is seen stealing from 

 its hole, and creeping about the farmer's yard for 

 its prey. If it enters the place where poultry are 

 kept, it never attacks the cocks or the old hens, 

 but immediately aims at the young ones. It does 

 not eat its prey on the place, but, after killing it 

 by a single bite near the head, and with a wound 

 so small that the place can scarcely be perceived, 

 it carries it off to its young, or its retreat. It 

 also breaks and sucks the eggs, and sometimes 

 kills the hen that attempts to defend them. It 

 is remarkably active ; and, in a confined place, 

 scarcely any animal can escape it. It will run up 

 the sides of walls with such facility, that no place 

 is secure from it ; and its body is so small, that 

 there is scarcely any hole but what it can wind 

 through. During the summer its excursions are 

 more extensive ; but in winter it chiefly confines 

 itself in barns and farm-yards, where it remains 

 till spring, and where it brings forth its young. 

 All this season it makes war upon the rats and 

 mice, with still greater "success than the cat ; for 

 being more active and slender, it pursues them 

 into their holes, and, after a short resistance, de- 

 stroys them. It creeps also into pigeon-holes, 



