New York Weasel 
and are often to be found in thick growths of young pine and 
birch that have sprung up, together with blackberry vines and 
briers, on land cleared of old-growths of pine forests. 
I have known the rabbits when chased by weasels to leave 
the woods and rush frantically out into the open, as if aware 
that their enemy was even better suited for rapid progress through 
briers and brambles than themselves, though they usually seek 
safety from their foes in just such places. And it certainly 
seems as if they knew what they were about at such times, 
for the weasels seldom leave the woods to follow them. 
In summer they catch grasshoppers, crickets, and beetles of 
various sorts, and rob every bird’s nest they find. Ground-feed- 
ing birds are especially liable to be caught by them, and they 
have even been seen to spring into the air and catch birds on 
the wing. 
Owing to their slimness and elastic muscles they have a 
decided advantage over most of the other wood-dwellers, and 
have little difficulty in killing birds and animals several times as 
large as themselves. 
I cannot learn of any other creature that is more thoroughly 
possessed of the lust for blood than are these slim-bodied little 
hunters. 
The larger kinds, including the ermine or long-tailed weasel and 
Bonaparte’s weasel, appear to be the most savage and _ blood- 
thirsty; the New York and the least weasel, from what I can 
learn, are somewhat more civilized in their ways. A New York 
weasel which | kept in captivity for a few days was gentle 
and docile from the very first, and perfectly fearless. 
Within less than an hour from the time she was first removed 
from the trap to her cage, she would take meat from my hand 
without the slightest hesitation, and never offered to bite my fingers 
even when touching them with her nose. This tameness could 
not have been brought about by hunger, for when | found her in 
the box-trap she had not wholly eaten the rabbit’s head which | 
had used for bait. 
The weasels of the Northern States and Canada turn white at 
the approach of winter. The end of the tail, however, does not 
change colour, but remains perfectly black as in the summer. 
I am inclined to think that this black point serves its owner 
in a variety of ways, though at first thought one might think it 
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