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NOTES AND QUEEIES. 



MAMMALIA. 



Strange Disappearance of a Weasel. — The following little incident 

 illustrates so forcibly the astonishing power of hiding possessed by 

 wild animals, that it seems worth recording. On July 7th, when 

 carrying hay here, one of the men saw a Weasel run into a haycock. 

 As it is an unwritten law on this farm that anyone who sees a chance 

 of capturing any small beast acceptable to my menagerie at once gives 

 chase, he and I and another man promptly rushed to the spot. The 

 first haycock was drawn blank, but the Weasel was duly bolted from 

 the second, and I made a dab at it, with my handkerchief held in my 

 hands, with a view not only to in some measure take off the " fiery 

 edge " of its bites, but also to assist in holding the slippery little 

 creature. It was too quick for me ; but on again bolting it from the 

 next haycock, I put my hands and the handkerchief fairly down on it. 

 I waited for it to make the next move, which it was to be expected 

 would be a spring, or upward thrust, when the best opportunity would 

 be given me to close my fingers round it. No such movement came, 

 but, on the contrary, I realized within a very few seconds that I could 

 no longer feel the Weasel ; so carefully contracting my fingers and the 

 handkerchief, proved to demonstration that no Weasel was there. It 

 was exactly like a conjuring trick, where a cloth is placed over some 

 article in full view of the audience, and on its removal it is found to 

 have been covering nothing. The natural explanation which will 

 probably occur to anyone who was not there is that the Weasel had 

 sunk into the run of a Mole, or of one or other of the various small 

 beasts usually lumped together as "Mice"; but there certainly was 

 no such run there. The grass stubble was quite short, resembling, if 

 not a scrubbing-brush, at least a well-worn bass-broom, and the actual 

 soil was everywhere visible between the stems. I was on my knees, 

 with my eyes therefore probably less than two feet from the ground ; 

 the other two men were as close by as they could stand, looking 

 eagerly and intently at my hands ; and a fourth man had by this 

 time come up and was within some five yards, and yet not one of 

 the four wa3 aware that the Weasel had slipped. A Weasel, probably 

 but by no means certainly the same individual, was presently seen 



