1 8 FARM VERMIN, HELPFUL AND HURTFUL, 



THE WEASEL {Mtistela vulgaris). 



It only remains now to speak of the little red weasel, and 

 I shall claim for it that while very beneficial as a mouser 

 and a destroyer of other small rodents, it is nearly (but not 

 quite) harmless to the poultry-keeper and game-preserver. 

 To begin with, the weasel is so small that it would have 

 some difficulty (savage and active as it is) in mastering full- 

 grown game or poultry, and (apart from very exceptional 

 cases) its misdeeds are probably confined to the occasional 

 slaughter of a young rabbit, leveret^ or chick. Casual 

 offences of this kind might well be overlooked in view of 

 services rendered, and, except in the case of incorrigible 

 offenders (such as a weasel which has found its way into a 

 dovecot, or to breeding-coops, or is raising a family close 

 to rabbit-burrows), protection might be afforded to weasels 

 if only on account of the large numbers of mice they destroy. 

 Bell gives the total length of the male weasel at 

 I of inches, which I think is above the average^ 

 for I remember being greatly struck with the size of one 

 which proved to measure only a quarter of an inch more. 

 A male weasel, therefore, can thread the mole's runs easily, 

 and the female, which is a wonderfully small animal, mea- 

 suring only 8 or 9 inches total length, can even follow 

 the field mice underground, and is probably by far the most 

 deadly enemy the small rodents have. In those wheat- 

 ricks, too, which are infested with mice and tunnelled in all 

 directions by their runs, weasels often do a great deal of 

 good — indeed, when a weasel takes up its quarters in a 

 rick, it generally soon effects a clearance of the murine 

 vermin. Rats are said to desert a sinking ship, and neither 

 they nor mice are likely to find a wheat-rick a very con- 

 venient habitation when once a stoat or a weasel has 

 adopted it as part of its beat. 



Many people ao not know clearly what the difference is 



