EXTRAORDINARY ADAPTABILITY OF A STOAT 



EXTRAORDINARY ADAPTABILITY OF A STOAT 



By James Ritchie, M.A., D.Sc, F.R.S.E. 



In April 1920 the keeper at Hopetoun House shot a 

 Stoat which he noticed advancing towards him, apparently 

 at ordinary speed, and with the usual lithe movements 

 of its kind. Just before he fired it sat up on its hind legs, 

 in the attitude of a begging dog. But when he picked up 

 the body he discovered that the anim.al had no fore-limbs. 

 The specimen was at once sent by the Marquess of Linlithgow 

 to the Royal Scottish Museum for examination, and it 

 proved to be an extraordinarily telling example of the power 

 of an animal to surmount difficulties, and, by readjusting 

 habits, to meet unforeseen contingencies with success. 



External examination revealed little more than that 

 the specimen was a norm.al male Stoat {Mustcia ennined), 

 except that there was no trace of fore-limbs. There was 

 no stump on either side to indicate that the limbs had 

 been lost through an early accident, nor were there present 

 traces of bleeding or healed wounds, except a very faint 

 cicatrix where the right limb should have been. Yet it was 

 easy to feel through the skin that the shoulder-blades were 

 present and apparently in ordinary condition. 



What, then, could have been the history of the individual ? 

 Had it been born without fore-limbs as the result of a 

 congenital malformation? Such deficiency occasionally 

 occurs in animals, as in human beings. Or could it have 

 been that the creature, at first perfect, had at some stage 

 in its history lost its fore-limbs? 



The doubt was at once laid to rest by a dissection of 

 the body and examination of the skeleton. The scapulae 

 or shoulder-blades were perfectly formed and had all their 

 normal muscle attachments, and hinged in the socket of 

 each scapula was set, normally, the head of an ordinarily 

 developed humerus or upper-arm bone. But although the 

 shaft of each humerus was normal in dimensions, so far 

 as it went, each was incomplete, the right being broken 



