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Rabbit, the Ruffed Grouse, and domestic fowl, are ten times its own size. 

 It is a notorious and hated depredator of the poultry-house, and we have 

 known forty full-grown fowls to have been killed in one night by a single 

 Ermine. Satiated with the blood of probably a single fowl, the rest, 

 like the flock slaughtered by the wolf in the sheepfold, ware destroyed 

 in obedience to a law of nature — an instinctive propensity to kill. We 

 have traced the footsteps of this blood-sucking little animal on- the snow, 

 pursuing the trail of the American Rabbit, and although it could not 

 overtake its prey by superior speed, yet the timid Hare soon took refuge 

 in the hollow of a tree, or in a hole dug by the Marmot or Skunk. 

 Thither it was pursued by the Ermine and destroyed, the skin and other 

 remains at the mouth of the burrow bearing evidence of the fact. We 

 observed an Ermine, after having captured a Hare of the above species, 

 first behead it and then drag the body some twenty yards over the fresh 

 fallen snow, beneath which it was concealed, and the snow lightly 

 pressed down over it, the little prowler displaying thereby a habit of 

 which we became aware for the first time on that occasion. To avoid a 

 dog that was in close pursuit, it mounted a tree and laid itself flat on a 

 limb about twenty feet from the ground, from which it was finally shot. 

 We have ascertained, by successful experiments repeated more than a 

 hundred times, that the Ermine can be employed, in the manner of the 

 Ferret of Europe, in driving the American Rabbit from the burrow into 

 which it has retreated. In one instance, the Ermine employed had been 

 captured only a few days before, and its canine teeth were filed in ordOT 

 to prevent its destroying the Rabbit; a cord was placed around its neck 

 to secure its return. It pursued the Hare through all its windings in its 

 burrow, and forced it to the mouth, where it could be taken in a net or 

 by the hand. In winter, after a snow storm, the Ruffed Grouse lias a 

 habit of plunging ^to the loose snow, where it remains at times one or 

 two days. In this passive state the Ermine sometimes detects and de- 

 stroys it. 



''Notwithstanding all these mischievous and destructive habits, it is 

 doubtful whether the Ermine is not rather a benefactor than an enemy 

 to the farmer, ridding his granaries and fields Of many depredators on 

 the product of his labor, that would devour ten times the value of the 

 poultry and eggs which, at long and uncertain intervals, it occasionally 

 destroys. A mission seems to have been a,ssigned it by Providence to 

 lessen the rapidly multiplying number of mice' of various species, and 

 other small rodents. 



" The White-footed Mouse is destructive to the grains in the wheat- 

 fields and in the stacks, as well as the nurseries of fruit-trees. Le Conte's 

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