120 
WEASEL HUNTING A RAT. 
eagerness overshot the spot where the rat had gone into 
the bank : it was only for a moment, he came hack, quar- 
tered the ground, found the trail, and was in the bank in 
no time. A blackthorn overhung the path; we saw some- 
thing move in it ; it was the rat ; the w^easel was going 
up the stem ; he was close after him ; he evidently view- 
ed him ; he gained on him ; the rat dropped himself into 
the foot-path, the weasel did the same, and followed him 
up the bank within a foot *. we heard a shrill cry, first 
long, then short, shorter, then all was still ; we went qui- 
etly to the place ; the weasel left his prey, hissing at us 
like an angry cat ; the brain of the rat was laid completely 
bare, but his little heart continued beating for nearly a 
minute as I held him in my hand. 
A Thrush was shouting out his sonorous vespers or the 
requiem of the rat from the topmost twig of an old elm 
tree, black, drear, leafless, budless, and offering no token 
of the spring which the sweet bird on its summit seemed 
so blithely to herald ; but it was St. Valentine's day, and 
he was inspired by love. 
When I got home I sat down and made these notes for 
you, and as they do not fill my paper, I will add one or 
two mems about the weasel, which have for a long time 
been standing by to be let go. The weasel is a very 
awkward-looking animal when running on level ground ; 
his great length and slenderness of body, and the shortness 
of his legs, are very much against speed ; but in climbing 
trees, or threading the long and narrow galleries of field- 
mice, this seeming disproportion is of the greatest use to 
him. I have seen him coursing along the boughs of a 
tree, winding himself round, above or below, just as suited 
his purpose, with all the ease and agility of a squirrel. I 
