PUTORIUS ERMINEA. 5g 
easy but dangerous feasts on domestic fowls. ... 1 have observed 
for several years the presence of a number of these Weasels in a 
grove near a farm-yard well stocked with poultry, which they never 
appeared to enter, though repeatedly visited by minks and skunks. 
Indeed, I am inclined to think that, notwithstanding their occasional 
predatory inroads, they should not be killed when living permanently 
about meadows or cultivated fields, at a distance from the poultry; 
for they are not less destructive to many of the farmer’s enemies in 
the fields. Meadow -mice are certainly the greatest pests among 
mammals in northern Illinois; and of these the Weasel destroys great 
numbers. I am informed that, upon the appearance of a Weasel in 
the field, the army of mice of all kinds begins a precipitate retreat. 
A gentleman of Wisconsin related to me that, while following the 
plough, in spring, he noticed a Weasel with a mouse in its mouth, 
running past him. It entered a hollow log. He determined to watch 
further, if possible, the animal's movements, and presently saw it 
come out again, hunt about the roots of some stumps, dead trees, and 
log-heaps, and then enter a hole, from which a mouse ran out. But 
the Weasel had caught one, and carried it to the nest. Upon cutting 
open this log, five young Weasels were found, and the remains of a 
large number of mice, doubtless conveyed there as food. . . . 
“ Stacks and barnfuls of grain are often overrun with rats and mice; 
but let a Weasel take up his residence there and soon the pests will 
disappear. A Weasel will, occasionally, remain for some time in a 
barn, feeding on these vermin, without disturbing the fowls. But it 
is never safe to trust one near the poultry-yard, for, when once an at- 
tack is made, there is no limit to the destruction. When the animal 
has entered stacks or barns, it has the curious habit of collecting in a 
particular place the bodies of all the rats and mice it has slain; thus 
sometimes a pile ot a hundred or more of their victims may be seen 
which have been killed in the course of two or three nip'hts.”* 
o 
* The Quadrupeds of Illinois injurious and beneficial to the Farmer. By Robert Kennicott. 
Report of the Commissioner of Patents for the year 1857, Agriculture, 1858, pp. 104-106. 
