THE WEASEL. 
297 
parts enables him to overcome animals vastlj' his 
superior in size. His attack upon the hare and rabbit 
is always uniform and decisive : he fixes his teeth into 
the neck of these animals just behind the ear, and 
death follows the bite in a very few minutes. 
Some two or three months ago, I heard the 
squeal of a rabbit, whilst I was working in the 
flower-garden ; and on arriving at the place whence 
it proceeded, I found the keeper there before me, 
with a fine old rabbit in his hand. He had seen the 
weasel on the rabbit's back, as he was proceeding 
down the hiil ; and he had scarcely rescued it from 
the grasp of its destroyer ere it died in his hand. 
I took out my penknife, and I dissected the death- 
wound, which was just under the ear. There was 
no laceration to be seen. Two small punctures 
merely appeared, as though they had been done 
with the point of a pin ; and they were surrounded 
by a spot of extravasated blood about the size of a 
sixpence. 
The rabbit is what may be termed short-winded, 
and is easily run down ; whilst, on the contrary, 
the hare is known to aiibrd a long chase ; hence the 
rabbit has not so good a chance as the hare of 
escaping from the weasel. 
Individuals of the weasel tribe pursue their prey 
by the scent ; but cats trust to their eye, and pounce 
on their quarry at a single bound. 
On a summer s evening, in the year 1815, I went 
over, with my air-gun, to my neighbour Sir William 
Pilkington, in order to thin his abundant crop of 
rabbits ; and I sat me down on a lonely bank, within 
