UNDER THE MAPLES 



slope below them. Their dog rushed down and 

 found a weasel holding a rabbit, which it released 

 on the approach of the dog and took to the cover 

 of a near-by stone wall. The whole story was 



I written there on the snow. The bloodsucker had 

 pursued the rabbit, pulling out tufts of fur for 

 many yards and then had pulled it down. 



'* Two neighbors of mine were hunting in the woods 

 when they came upon a weasel chasing a red squir- 

 rel around the trunk of a big oak; round and round 

 they went in a fury of flight and pursuit. The 

 men stood and looked on. It soon became apparent 

 that the weasel was going to get the squirrel, so 

 they watched their chance and shot the blood- 

 sucker. Why the squirrel did not take to the tree- 

 tops, where the weasel probably would not have 

 followed him, and thus make his escape — who 

 knows? One of my neighbors, however, says he 

 has seen where a weasel went up a tree and took a 

 gray squirrel out of its nest and dropped it on the 

 snow, then dragged it to cover and left it dead. 

 The weasel seems to inspire such terror in its vic- 

 tim that it becomes fairly paralyzed and falls an 

 easy prey. Those cruel, blazing, beadlike eyes, 

 that gliding snakelike form, that fearless, fatelike 

 pursuit and tenacity of purpose, all put a spell upon 

 the pursued that soon renders it helpless. A weasel 

 once pursued a hen to my very feet and seized it 

 and would not let it go until I put my foot upon it 



178 



