9 



along the top of a wall, or a fencerail or even up the bed 

 of a brook. Less often we may find where the hunter had 

 waited in ambush and laid him low with a broadside of shot 

 when he was least expecting it. 



Ah! Here we find the trade-mark, as it is. of another 

 animal crossing the fresh snow, — ^the trail of a 



WEASEL. 



Xo animal may tread on ^^'inter's mantle without writing 

 its name as plainly before the naturalist as though it were 

 spelled in letters. We follow the pairs of dots, indicating 

 the leisurely lope of a weasel, across the field and along 

 the wall. Presently he stops, even as we do, and closely 

 examines another trade-mark in the form of footprints, — 

 those of a red squirrel, leading from some small trees to 

 the wall. The snow shows plainly where the white animal 

 sniffed at the tracks of the red one and then followed it in 

 through a crevice between the stones. Probably even now, 

 somewhere in the length of the w:'.ll the weasel is drinking 

 the life blood of its victim. 



We often see weasel tracks in winter and the results of 

 their depredations both in winter and summer, but we very 

 seldom see the animals themselves for they are exceedingly 

 sly. In winter their coats are as white as the snow itself 

 so that even should they show themselves in the open it 

 would be very difficult to see them. In this winter fur, they 

 are known, trapped and sold as ermine. The best and 

 largest ermine or weasel skins are those secured in the most 

 northern countries, — Siberia, Russia, Lapland. Canada and 

 Alaska. 



With the exception of a tiny weasel, barely six inches 

 long, found in the northwestern states, every known spe- 

 cies has a black tip to the tail. All northern forms change 

 from white in winter to brown in summer, so that they are 

 practically "ground color" all the time. 



Rabbits, mice, squirrels, all kinds of birds and poultry 



