44 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



LETTER XV. 



TO THE SAME. 



SELBORNE, March y>th, 1768. 



DEAR SIR, Some intelligent country people have a notion that 

 we have, in these parts, a species of the genus mustelinum, besides 

 the weasel, stoat, ferret, and polecat ; a little reddish beast, not 

 much bigger than a field-mouse, but much longer, which they call a 

 cane. This piece of intelligence can bs little depended on ; but 

 farther inquiry may be made.* 



A gentleman in this neighbourhood had two milk-white rooks in 

 one nest. A booby of a carter, finding them before they were able 



to fly, threw them down and destroyed them, to the regret of the 

 owner, who would have been glad to have preserved such a curiosity 



* Such is the case at the present time. Most gamekeepers insist that there is another 

 beast different from the weasel or stoat ; young and female weasels appear very small 

 when running, and in reality look scarcely bigger than a large mouse, the form being a 

 little more lengthened. These do not agree with the weasels and stoats taken in traps, 

 &c., and hence the delusion is kept up. 



Mitford has the following note in his edition. " This I believe to be a pretty general 

 error among the county-people, also in other counties. This imaginary animal in Suffolk 

 is called the ' mouse-hunt,' from its being supposed to live on mice. To discover the truth 

 of this report, I managed to have several of these animals brought to me ; all of which I 

 find to be the common weasel. The error I conceive partly to have arisen from this 

 animal, like most others, appearing less than its real size, when running or attempting to 

 escape, a circumstance well known to the hunters of India, with respect to larger animals, 

 as the tiger," &c. 



