138 FAMILIAR LIFE IN FIELD AND FOREST. 



such as the American rabbit, the rufEed 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 well-grown fowls " [later 

 accounts make it fifty] " 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, were de- 

 stroyed in obedience to a law of Xature, an instinctive 

 propensity to kill. . . . "We have observed an ermine, 

 after having captured a hare, . . . first behead it and 

 then drag the liody some twenty yards over the fresh 

 fallen snow, beneath which it was concealed and the 

 snow lightly pressed down over it." 



Now let us hear what Elliott Coues has to say : 

 " Swift and surefooted, he makes open chase and runs 

 down his prey ; ... he assails it not only upon the 

 ground, but under it, and on trees and in the water. 

 Keen of scent, he tracks it and makes the fatal spring 

 upon it unawares ; lithe, and of extraordinary slen- 

 derness of body, he follows the smaller creatures 

 through the intricacies of their hidden abodes, and 

 kills them in their homes ; and if he does not kill for 

 the simple love of taking life, in gratification of super- 

 lative bloodthirstiness, he at any rate kills instinctive- 

 ly more than he can possibly require for his support. 

 I know not where to find a parallel ' among the larger 



