LIFE-IN-DEATH 97 



Now and again it happens that a ferret is killed acci- 

 dentally while at work. And sometimes dead ferrets 

 return to life, health, and strength in a way 

 to put even cats to shame. We recall how 

 Death & rat-hating keeper's wife, notorious for the 

 quality of her right arm, was one day help- 

 ing her husband to hunt rats in a wood-shed. On 

 the ferret suddenly popping out his head from a 

 wood-pile, the good woman lost her wits, and aimed 

 a shrewd blow with her poker at the ferret's nose. 

 In tears, she left the poor little beast still and stark. 

 A gardener was asked to bury it, and plant a carnation 

 over the grave. He found it in the dustbin, eating 

 the head of a duck. 



In another case, a rat-hunter knocked a ferret 

 with a hurdle-stake from the eaves of a corn-stack 

 far out into a field, where it was picked up appa- 

 rently dead, and put into a bag. Some hours later 

 the body was tipped from the bag into a little grave, 

 when it startled the gravedigger by gasping for 

 breath. In a little while the corpse celebrated its 

 resurrection by slaughtering all the pheasants in a 

 pen, and just as they were beginning to lay. Once 

 we saw a ferret struck by a pellet from a gun, which 

 went through its head, ahair's-breadth below the eyes. 

 Both eyes were blinded ; yet the ferret recovered, 

 and lived and worked as long and well as most of its 

 kind. Ferrets are tougher than they look. The weak 

 spot, no doubt, is in the lungs. 



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