586 



REPORT OF STATE GEOLOGIST. 



per cent, of the weasels of the State change color in winter. Brown 

 winter specimens are apparently found throughout the State. I 

 have records of white individuals from Monroe, Miami and Knox 

 counties and the Kankakee valley. 



The New York weasel is the only species recorded from the 

 State, and its range, at the present time, seems to include every 

 county. 



Habits. — Weasels are the most bloodthirsty of all our mammals. 

 Like the mink, they will invade a chicken-house and kill a large 

 number in a single night. They are also good mousers and some- 

 times do good by entering barns and destroying the mice and rats 

 there. Field mice and wood mice are also killed in large numbers, 

 but the good they do in this way is counterbalanced by the birds 

 they destroy. They are better climbers than either the skunk or 

 mink, hence do much more damage among the songbirds. Grouse 

 and quail are also numbered among their victims, and it is said 

 that a hundred quail may sometimes be destroyed in a single night. 



Nor do they stop with the smaller animals. Woodchucks and 

 muskrats are doubtless killed in their homes, while rabbits form 

 one of their staple articles of food. I have often seen trades in the 

 snow where weasels had been following a rabbit. Rhoads tells of 

 a hunter following the track of a weasel in the snow and finding 

 eleven dead rabbits which the bloodthirsty little animal had killed 

 in a single night. They were either hidden in the hole that they 

 had started from, or pulled under the snow, sometimes 20 feet or 

 more to some brush pile. They are killed by biting between the 

 eye and the ear, the wound being so small that it is difficult to find. 

 The hunter who gave this account had spent much time hunting 

 and trapping weasels. He declared that they never rest, but are 

 always killing. With the snow eight inches deep and the mercury 

 7 degrees below zero, he was unable to catch up with one he was 

 tracking. 



Because of their small size they can enter the burrows of ground- 

 squirrels and rats, as well as those of the larger rodents, and no 

 inhabitant of the woods, excepting the larger carnivores, are safe 

 from their depredations. They are not at all averse to coming neai* 

 dwelling houses, either at night or during the day. I hav(^ known 

 in a number of instances, of jxTsons seeing Hkmh ;)l)oni ;i barn oi' 

 garden during daylight. 



l^(^cause they are such good travelers, it is not ensy to find their 

 (lens and set traps for 1h(»n], even wlicn \\\v\v ti'ncks an^ found in 

 the i'rcsli snow. ''I'hcy wind in nnd oul ;iinong the tr*ees, entering 



