

THE TRAGEDIES OF THE NESTS. 41 



ears, their prominent, glistening, bead-like eyes, and 

 the curving, snake-like motions of the head and neck 

 being very noticeable. They looked like blood-suck erf 

 and egg-suckers. They suggested something extremely 

 remorseless and cruel. One could understand the 

 alarm of the rats when they discover one of these 

 fearless, subtle, and circumventing creatures thread- 

 ing their holes. To flee must be like trying to escape 

 death itself. I was one day standing in the woods 

 upon a flat stone, in what at certain seasons was the 

 bed of a stream, when one of these weasels came un- 

 dulating along and ran under the stone upon which I 

 was standing. As I remained motionless, he thrust 

 out his wedge-shaped head, and turned it back above 

 the stone as if half in mind to seize my foot ; then he 

 drew back, and presently went his way. These wea- 

 sels often hunt in packs like the British stoat. When 

 I was a boy, my father one day armed me with an old 

 musket and sent me to shoot chipmunks around the 

 corn. While watching the squirrels, a troop of wea- 

 sels tried to cross a bar-way where I sat, and were so 

 bent on doing it that I fired at them, boy-like, simply 

 to thwart their purpose. One of the weasels was dis- 

 abled by my shot, but the troop was not discouraged, 

 and, after making several feints to cross, one of them 

 seized the wounded one and bore it over, and the 

 pack disappeared in the wall on the other side. 



Let me conclude this chapter with two or three 

 more notes about this alert enemy of the birds and 

 the lesser animals, the weasel. 



A farmer one day heard a queer growling sound in 

 the grass ; on approaching the spot he saw two weasels 

 contending over a mouse ; each had hold of the mouse 

 pulling in opposite directions, and were so absorbed in 



