422 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



shyness, and will come when called to take food from the hand. 

 Their activity is surprising, and their movements are sometimes 

 so rapid that the eye can scarcely follow them. This is especially 

 the case when a Weasel is surprised in the open and chased by a 

 terrier. If brought to bay they fight pluckily, and will hang on 

 to the nose or lips of a dog with the tenacity of a terrier. Like 

 Stoats they can climb well, and have often been seen to ascend 

 trees many feet from the ground ; and this not only when chased 

 by an enemy, but from choice when in pursuit of prey. A 

 Weasel has been found in a tree twelve feet from the ground, and 

 has been even known to make its nest in a hollow tree. One was 

 seen to jump from the top of a limestone pit into some water 

 thirty or forty feet below, and swim acrose the pool. For both 

 Weasels and Stoats can swim well ; we have often seen them 

 crossing a pool voluntarily. Sometimes they would carry a 

 young one across, sometimes a dead field-mouse, holding it in the 

 mouth as a cat would carry a kitten. On one occasion a Weasel 

 was observed to cross a river at high-tide, where the water was 

 fifty or sixty yards wide. 



The Weasel, like the Squirrel, will catch small birds when he 

 can take them by surprise, and will carry off eggs between his 

 chin and fore paws, just as a rat will do. But his favourite and 

 natural food consists of field mice, Mus sylvatica, in the woods 

 and hedgerows, Mus mu&culus about the stacks and farmyards, 

 and Arvicola agrestis in the open fields and pastures ; while he 

 will not hesitate to attack a rat, even if larger than himself, 

 should occasion arise. So frequently have we witnessed his 

 pertinacity in mouse-hunting that, on this score alone, we should 

 be inclined to forgive him for carrying off a chicken. We would 

 even go a step further. We have known stack-yards in which 

 Weasels were repeatedly seen and left unmolested. Hens with 

 chickens were daily pecking about the yard, but no chickens were 

 missed. It appeared that, so long as the Weasels could get mice 

 and rats, they preferred fur to feather. The late Mr. R. F. Tomes, 

 of Welford-on-Avon, once kept watch from a place of concealment 

 upon a nest of young Weasels, and saw the parent bring, in a 

 little more than an hour, five field mice for her young, which 

 were playing in and out of the hole. On her arrival with the 

 fifth, he shouted and made her drop it, when, on picking it up 

 for examination, he found it to be the Short-tailed Field Vole, 

 Arvicola agrestis. 



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