428 



A VERY RESTLESS ANIMAL. 



The Weasel is a restless animal. If you happen to come up 

 to it in roclis where there is no snow you will have to stand 

 only a few seconds, and you will imagine that you have found 

 a whole family of them, as his head will be sticking- out of sev- 

 eral holes almost at the same time; but if the snow is on the 

 ground to the depth of three inches, you will onl^' see him 

 once, but if you make a large circle around the place where you 

 saw him last you will find a small hole in the snow and a 

 Weasel track going away from it, that will lead you more than 

 twenty miles in every direction, and still you will not see him. 

 In the fall of 1894 I was in a barber shop in Freeland, and 

 about half shaved when several boys came running to the 

 door, telling me that a whole family of Weasels were under 

 the plank side-walk. Of course 1 pushed the barber away and 

 jumped out of the chair. There was a very large crowd sur- 

 rounding the walk, all having clubs and shovels, and a Weasel 

 head was peeping out of e\iery hole at almost the same time, 

 and a knot-hole in the sidewalk showed a head about every 

 thirty seconds and that one was supposed to be the leader. I 

 joined the crowd of watchers and sent my boy for my flobert 

 rifle. I shot the first Weasel that showed its head, and told 

 the boys that I would give them a dollar for every other Wea- 

 sel that they would see. I did not have to pay a dollar. 



WHERE HE PREFERS TO LIVE. 



The Weasel frequents the wildest portions of our mountains 

 and seldoms ventures into any open ground, except when it 

 has all the game killed in the thickets. It will climb a tree 

 after a bird's nest or when chased, but it cannot run down a 

 tree head foremost like a Squirrel. It will jump from branch 

 to branch until it gets to the lower branches and then comes 

 down backwards or jumps. I never saw the Weasel on a very 

 large tree or up very high on a tree. 



WILL SUCK ITS OWN BLOOD. 



A Weasel will suck its own blood. In the summer of 1S95 I 

 caught a very fierce looking, coarse haired, dark brown Weasel 

 In one of my wire traps, and I stabbed him through the wires 

 with the long blade of my knife in the shoulder; as soon as he 

 saw the blood he turned his neck, took hold of the wounded 

 part and sucked all the blood until he swayed back and forth 

 and fpJI dead. 



