TE COMMON WEASEL. 



Manners of a tame weasel. 



pay it this compliment, it will scarcely take a 

 drop. When satisfied, it generally goes to sleep. 

 My chamber is the place of its residence ; and I 

 have found a method of dispelling its strong 

 smell by perfumes. By day it sleeps in a quilt, 

 into which it gets by an unsown place which it 

 had discovered on the edge ; during the night, it 

 is kept in a wired box or cage; which it always 

 enters with reluctance, and leaves with pleasure. 

 If it be set at liberty before my time of rising, 

 after a thousand little playful tricks, it gets into 

 my bed, and goes to sleep in my hand or on my 

 bosom. If I am up first, it spends a full half- 

 hour in caressing me; playing with my fingers 

 like a little dog, jumping on my head and on my 

 neck, and running round on my arms and body 

 with a lightness and elegance which I never 

 found in any other animal. If I present my 

 hands at the distance of three feet, it jumps into 

 them without ever missing. It shows a great 

 deal of address and cunning in order to compass 

 its ends, and seems to disobey certain prohibitions 

 merely through caprice. During all its actions, 

 it seems solicitous to divert, and to be noticed; 

 looking, at every jump, and at every turn, to see 

 whether it be observed or not. If no notice be 

 taken of its gambols, it ceases them immediately, 

 and betakes itself to sleep ; and even when 

 awaked from the soundest sleep it instantly re- 

 sumes its gaiety, and frolics about in as sprightly 

 a. manner as before. It never shows any ill-lit*- 



