A LITERARY, SCIENTIFIC, AND INSTRUCTIVE FAMILY PAPER. 



Conducted toy WILLIAM KIDD, of HammersmitJi,— 



Author of the Familiar and Popular Essays on "Natural History;" "British Song 



Birds;" "Birds op Passage;" "Instinct and Reason;" 



" The Aviary and its Occupants," &c, 



"the OBJECT of our work is to make MEN WISER, WITHOUT OBLIGING them to turn over folios and 



QUARTOS.— TO FURNISH MATTER FOR THINKING AS WELL AS READING."— EVELYN. 



No. 17.— 1852. 



SATURDAY, APRIL 24. 



Price \\d. 



Or, in Monthly Parts, Price Id. 



PERSECUTED ANIMALS. 



An Apology for Various Supposed Injurious 

 Creatures. — No. II. 



BY BEVERLEY R. MORRIS, ESQ., A.B., M.D. 

 [Continued from page 194,} 



The very general interest which, I 

 understand, has attached to my former ob- 

 servations under this head, induces me readily 

 to resume the subject ; nor should I ever be 

 weary of writing on so pleasing a topic, 

 whilst readers can be found willing to listen 

 to my expressed thoughts. It is high time 

 that common prejudices were removed ; and 

 how can this be better effected than by quiet 

 reasoning, and patient argument? 



The animals to whose comparative harm- 

 lessness I have already borne willing testi- 

 mony, are the Hedgehog, the Mole, and the 

 Badger. I will now add to these ; and 

 first of 



The Weasel {Mustela). 



This animal would seem, at first sight, to 

 be one of those in whose favor nothing 

 could be said ; its carnivorous propensities 

 being such as to render it very destructive 

 to game. As however we are convinced 

 that under, certainly, a forbidding aspect, a 

 considerable amount of good service is also 

 done, more especially to the farmer, we have 

 thought it only right to give him the benefit 

 of any extenuating facts, in the hope of in 

 some degree lessening the indiscriminat- 

 ing persecution which everywhere attends 

 him. 



No doubt — where game is strictly pre- 

 served, musteline animals must be kept in 

 check ; but even there they are of some 

 service, in keeping down other animals 

 which are also destructive to the game ; at 

 the same time, we are aware that, in such 

 cases, little can be said in his favor. To the 

 farmer however, we believe him to be a use- 

 ful ally ; and if due precautions be used in 

 the care of the poultry, very little injury 



need be anticipated in this quarter. Fol- 

 lowing our usual plan, we quote the ob~ 

 servations of another person in support of 

 our views. Mr. W. H. White, writing in 

 Loudon's Magazine, says, " My venerable 

 father, who was a considerable farmer in 

 Derbyshire, left the following account of the 

 Weasel among his papers, which was found 

 after his decease. He was a man who en- 

 couraged almost all living creatures on his 

 farms. Upon this principle, in his own 

 words, ' As every cause has its effect, so has 

 every evil its corresponding good. The 

 weasel,' he writes, ' has been of great value 

 to me, during the last three years (1802, 

 1803, and 1804). I was very much trou- 

 bled about the vermin (mice) in my wheat 

 ricks. I had tried ferrets, but I could not 

 lessen their numbers apparently. As I was 

 one day looking round my rick-yard, I saw, 

 on the roof of a wheat- rick, a weasel, seem- 

 ingly intent upon watching for its prey. He 

 suddenly entered a hole in the thatch, and 

 brought out a mouse (nearly full grown), 

 and was immediately followed by another 

 (weasel) carrying a similar burden. They 

 entered another hole in the rick, and I 

 thought I had finally lost all traces of them : 

 but they soon found their way through the 

 rick, and came out at the bottom, each bear- 

 ing its burden. They crossed the rick-yard, 

 and entered a hole in a bank, which led 

 under an ash tree. In about five minutes, 

 they returned from their retreat in the bank, 

 without their loads, crossed the yard, and 

 entered the same rick again. One of them 

 then stationed itself by the hole, as before, 

 while the other, as I suppose, ferreted out 

 the mice. On the approach of the latter to 

 the hole, in the hope of making its escape, 

 the weasel again darted into the hole, and 

 very shortly both the weasels returned, each 

 bearing a mouse, as before. These they 

 conveyed to their retreat under the ash tree ; 

 and this they repeated four times in about 

 one hour and a half, thus destroying eight 

 mice. 



Vol. I. New Series. 



