WEASEL KIND. 77 



The ferret is about one foot long, being nearly 

 four inches longer than the weasel. It resembles 

 that animal in the slenderness of its body, and the 

 shortness of its legs ; but its nose is sharper, and 

 its body more slender, in proportion to its length. 

 The ferret is commonly of a cream colour ; but 

 they are also found of all the colours of the weasel 

 kind ; white, blackish, brown, and party-coloured. 

 Those that are of the whitish kind, have their 

 eyes red, as is almost general with all animals 

 entirely of that colour. But its principal dis- 

 tinction from the weasel is the length of the hair 

 on its' tail, which is much longer in the ferret 

 than the weasel. Words will not well express 

 the other distinctions ; and what might take up 

 a page in dull discrimination, a single glance of 

 the eye, when the animals themselves are present- 

 ed, can discover. 



As this animal is a native of the torrid zone,* 

 so it cannot bear the rigours of our climate with- 

 out care and shelter, and it generally repays the 

 trouble of its keeping by its great agility in the 

 warren. It is naturally such an enemy of the 

 rabbit kind, that if a dead rabbit be presented to 

 a young ferret, although it has never seen one 

 before, it instantly attacks and bites it with an 

 appearance of rapacity. If the rabbit be living, 

 the ferret is still more eager, seizes it by the neck, 

 winds itself round it, and continues to suck its 

 blood till it be satiated. 



* Buffon. 



