9 8 



ZOOLOGICAL SKETCHES. 



even against the Simia destructor, — the terrible weapon- 

 inventor, with his murderous machines and four-footed 

 allies. 



Phrenologists assure us that the skull-bones of all 

 mammals indicate their mental characteristics ; and I 

 have often examined the head of a weasel and wondered 

 at the flat top of its little occiput, for, if Spurzheim is 

 right, the " organ of secretiveness" should form a pro- 

 tuberance resembling the horn of a Texas toad. A 

 caged weasel seems rather an uninteresting pet, slow 

 at learning tricks and not very quick in distinguishing 

 playthings from comestibles; but let it escape in a fur- 

 nished room, and its peculiar forte will marvellously as- 

 sert itself: it will vanish at once, and, with the curious 

 felicity of some lawyers in hitting impromptu upon the 

 one tenable subterfuge, it will at once get into the very 

 best hiding-place the territory affords, — the lining of an 

 old dressing-gown or the interior mechanism of a spring- 

 mattress, — and remain invisible and almost inaudible for 

 days together. Squirrels, too, have a curious knack of 

 disappearing at the critical moment and keeping out of 

 sight, even on leafless trees, by dodging behind branches 

 and excrescences that seem hardly large enough to hide 

 a good-sized mouse. Our little Northern gray squirrel 

 rummages the penetralia of every hollow tree, but for 

 its family nest it almost invariably chooses a cavity 

 opening into what lumbermen call a "fork-split," — i.e., 

 a crack in the fork or saddle between the stem of a tree 



