124 MAMMALIA—ERMINE. 
belly. The eyes are small and black ; the ears short and roundish ; and the 
nose is furnished with whiskers, like those of a cat. It moves by unequal 
leaps, and can spring several feet from the ground, or run up a wall without 
difficulty. 
When a weasel enters a hen-roost, it never meddles with the cocks or the 
o'd hens; it makes choice of the pullets, the young chickens, and these it 
kills with a single stroke on the head, and carries away one after another. 
The eggs it sucks with incredible avidity ; making a small hole at one end, 
through which it licks out the yolk. In winter, it generally resides in some 
granary, or hay-loft; where the female often continues even in the spring, 
in order to bring forth her young among the hay or straw. During this 
time, the weasel makes war with the rats and mice, with more success than 
the cat, since, following them into all their holes, it is next to an impossi- 
bility for them to escape. It also climbs up to the pigeon houses, to the 
nests of sparrows, &c., and commits great havoc. In summer, it removes 
to some distance from the houses, always choosing the lower lands about 
the mills and streams, hiding itself among the bushes, in order to catch the 
birds, and not unfrequently taking up its habitation in the hollow of an old 
willow. The female generally brings forth four or five. The young ones 
come forth with their eyes shut, but in a little time they attain a sufficiency 
of growth and strength to follow their mother to the chase. They attack 
adders, water rats, moles, field mice, &c., and, LETS the meadows, 
devour quails and their eggs. 
Like the polecat and the ferret, these seine have so strong a scent that 
they cannot be kept in any place that is inhabited. As their own smell is 
very bad, they seem to sustain no inconvenience from any foreign stench or 
infection. A peasant took, one day, three weasels newly brought forth in 
the carcass of a wolf, which had been suspended by its hind legs, from one 
of the branches of a tree; and though the wolf was almost entirely rotten, 
the old weasel, nevertheless, brought moss, straw, and leaves, in order to 
make a bed for her young ones in the cavity of the thorax. The weasel 
may be tamed, and is then very good tempered, and excessively curious. 
ie ER MIN BOR Ss oA ae 
Tue weasel with a black tail is called the ermine when it is white, and 
tne stoat, when it is red or yellowish. Though it is a less common animal 
than the weasel, yet there are numbers to be found in the old forests, and 
sometimes during the winter in the neighborhood of woody grounds. It is 
always easy to distinguish it from the common weasel, because the tip of 
its tail is uniformly of a deep black, while the edges of its ears, and the 
extremities of its feet, are white. 
1 Mustela erminea, Desm. 
