226 ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 
elongated pupils ; their nostrils seated at the extremity 
of a moist glandular muzzle ; their tongues clothed with 
raised sharp horny papille; and their toes, of which 
there are five to each foot, armed with long, slender, 
sharp, curved, semiretractile claws. These claws, al- 
though sharp at the points, want the cutting edges 
possessed by the same organs in the Cats, and are 
besides but ill calculated by their want of strength for 
seizing on their prey. They are also incapacitated by 
the latter circumstance for burrowing in the earth, like 
those of the Dogs and Bears; and they seem rather to 
be of use in climbing trees, a feat which these animals 
execute with great dexterity, travelling among the 
branches with such rapidity as to seem rather to fly 
than to run. They usually remain during the greater 
part of the day asleep in their retreats, but towards 
night they begin to rouse themselves and prowl abroad 
in search of the living victims on which they chiefly 
feed. In unimhabited districts these are commonly 
found among the smaller animals of the Rodent Order ; 
but a still more plentiful supply is frequently derived 
in cultivated countries from the farm-yard, in which the 
poultry forms the principal object of their nocturnal 
incursions. Their visits are sometimes attended with 
the most extensive devastation, their sanguinary dispo- 
sitions impelling them to the commission of wholesale 
destruction for the gratification of their excessive thirst 
of blood. 
In the more typical groups of the family, constituting 
the major part of the Linnean genus Mustela, the den- 
tition is nearly uniform, and consists most commonly of 
SIX incisors and two canines in each jaw; of two false 
molars, one lacerator, and one tubercular tooth in the 
upper jaw, and of three false molars, a lacerator, and a 
tubercular tooth in the lower. The group, however, for 
