TUTOR I us ERMINKA. 5 9 



easy but dang-erous feasts on domestic fowls. ... I have ol)servetl 

 for several years the presence of a number of these Weasels in a 

 crrove near a farm-yard well stocked with poultr)-. which they never 

 appeared to enter, thoui^h repeatedly visited by minks and skunks. 

 Indeed. I am inclined to think that, notwithstandino- their occasional 

 predatory inroads, they should not be killed when livino- permanently 

 about meadows or cultivated fields, at a distance from the poultry; 

 for they are not less destructive to man\- of the farmer's enemies in 

 the fields. Meadow -mice are certainly tiie o^reatest pests amono- 

 mammals in northern Illinois; and of thc;se the Weasel destro\s oreat 

 numbers. I am informed that, upon the appearance of a Weasel m 

 the field, the army of mice of all kinds begins a precipitate retreat. 

 A gendeman of Wisconsin related to me that, while following- die 

 plough, in spring, he noticed a Weasel with a mouse in its moudi, 

 running past him. It entered a hollow log. He determined to watch 

 further, if possible, the animal's movements, and presentl)' saw it 

 come out again, hunt about the roots of some stumps, dead trec^s, and 

 log-heaps, and then enter a hole, from which a mouse ran out. Hut 

 the Weasel had caught one, and carried it to the nest. Upon cutting 

 open this log, five young Weasels were found, and die remains ol a 

 large number of mice, doubtless conveyed there as food. . . . 



"Stacks and barnfuls of grain are often overrun with rats and mice; 

 but let a Weasel take up his residence there and soon the pests will 

 disappear. A Weasel will, occasionally, remain for some time in a 

 barn, feeding on these vermin, without disturl)ing the fowls. But it 

 is never safe to trust one near the poultry-)ard, for, when once an at- 

 tack is made, there is no limit to the destruction. When the animal 

 has entered stacks or barns, it has the curious habit of collecting in a 

 particular place the bodies of all the rats and mice it has slain; thus 

 sometimes a pile of a hundred or more of their victims may be seen 

 which have been killed in the course of two or three nights."==' 



* The (Quadrupeds of Illinois injurious and l)enclicial lo the Farmer. 15y Rol)ort Kennieolt. 

 Report of ihc Commissioner of Patents for tlie year 1S57, Agriculture, 1S5S, pi). 104-106. 



