188 



THE NATURALIST. 



and disappearance of Putorius fcetidus in certain localities and not to any 

 love for a roving life, as may be supposed; for the animal entertains a decided 

 partiality to a duly established locality, and seldom quits it of its own free 

 will. When they are disturbed they will travel long distances from one 

 rendezvous to another, not deviating much from a straight track, fording 

 streams with great celerity, and surmounting other difficulties rather than 

 adopt a more circuitous route. Of all our mustelidoe the pole cat is beyond 

 doubt the most bloodthirsty and revengeful ; his penchant for a murderous 

 career is so strongly developed in his nature, that no living creature unpossessed 

 of a rebellious and retortive spirit, and strength to repel his attacks, can 

 escape him. He metes out destruction and death to all such animals as have 

 the temerity or misfortune to cross his path. Behold him under circum- 

 stances such as the following, and some idea may be formed of the insatiate 

 cruelty and destructiveness of his nature. On a grassy knoll he is stretched at 

 full length, basking under the heat of a noontide sun, and gorged, apparently 

 to inanition with a leveret, the remains of which lie scattered around him ; 

 near him is a rabbit's burrow out of which an unsophisticated but youthful 

 scion of Lepus cuniculus emerges and unconscious of the near proximity of its 

 implacable enemy, commences to crop the tender shoots of grass, till in an 

 unlucky moment it reaches a point whence the air tainted with the exhala- 

 tions of its body wafts its way to Putorius fmtidus, which, though semi-som- 

 nolent yet ever watchful, sniffs in the well known scent, when, with distended 

 nostril and dilated pupil he suddenly pounces on the innocent victim, as 

 would a smoked Cossack of the Ural upon a helpless Turk, and drives his 

 canines deep into the brain, and the next instant returns to his former quies- 

 cent position, without even tasting the life blood of the slain animal. 

 Witness this, and you would rank him as bloodthirsty a marauder as a " red 

 man" of the Ohio woods, who used to scalp the pioneers seventy years ago. 



In the farm yard he is infinitely more destructive than the fox, for while 

 he is quite as daring and imbued with a cunning equal to Eeynard, his 

 smaller size and elasticity of body, give him the greater advantage, for he 

 can insinuate himself into a hole little larger than that which an ordinary 

 sized rat may enter. On reaching a hen roost on a predatory excursion, he 

 will circumambulate the entire structure, searching for an easy means of 

 entrance. If this fails him, he will seek for some aperture, and however, 

 small it may be, he will speedily enlarge it to the required size, if such a 

 mode of procedure be practicable, or, he will immediately climb to the roof, 

 seldom desisting from his work of demolition without effecting his purpose 



