184 MUSTELAD^E. 



Mice which infest them. Those only who have witnessed 

 the multitudinous numbers in which these little pests are 

 found, in wheat-ricks especially, and have seen the man- 

 ner in which the interior is sometimes drilled, as it were, 

 in every direction by their runs, can at all appreciate the 

 amount of their depredations ; * and surely the occasional 

 abduction of a chicken or a duckling, supposing it to be 

 even much more frequently chargeable against the Weasel 

 than it really is, would be but a trifling set-off against 

 the benefit produced by the destruction of those swarms 

 of little thieves. 



The Weasel climbs trees with tolerable facility, and 

 surprises birds on the nest, sucks the eggs, or carries off 

 the young, and will creep, as we know from personal 

 observation, along the boughs and twigs of a hawthorn 

 hedge in search of the nests. It has been asserted that 

 it attacks and destroys snakes : this, however, we believe 

 to be entirely erroneous. We have tried the experiment 

 by placing a Weasel and a common snake together in a 

 large cage, in which the former had the opportunity of 

 retiring into a small box in which it was accustomed to 

 sleep. The mutual fear of the two animals kept them at 

 a respectful distance from each other ; the snake, how- 

 ever, exhibiting quite as much disposition to be the as- 

 sailant as its more formidable companion. At length 

 the Weasel gave the snake an occasional slight bite on 

 the side or on the nose, without materially injuring it, 

 and evidently without any instinctive desire to feed upon 

 it; and at length, after they had remained two or three 

 hours together, in the latter part of which they appeared 



* A friend of ours assures us that at least three bushels of different species 

 of Mice have been killed out of one wheat-rick. We have ourselves often seen 

 great numbers killed on the removal of a rick. But, with few exceptions, they 

 have been of the common species, Mus musculus. 



