WHITE WEASEL. 
61 
food, as from a mere love of sport. The buffalo and the elk he has 
driven across the Mississippi, and their haunts are now restricted to the 
prairies of the far West. Even now thousands are slaughtered for 
f^u^u^sement, and their tongues only are used, whilst their carcasses are 
left to the wolves. He fills his game bag with more woodcock, par- 
tridges and snipe, than he requires ; his fishing-rod does not remain idle 
even after he has provided a full meal for his whole family ; and our 
youngsters are taught to shoot the little warbler and the sparrow as 
a preparatory training for the destruction of larger game. 
The Ermine is far from being shy in its habits. It is not easily 
alarmed, and becomes tolerably tame when taken young, for we have 
on several occasions succeeded in our attempts at domesticating it, but 
it appeared to us that these pets were not quite as gentle as many 
ferrets that we have seen in Europe. When not kept in confinement, 
they were apt to stray off into the fields and woods, and finally be- 
came wild. The tracks of this species on the snow are peculiar, exhibit- 
ing only two footprints, placed near each other, the succeeding tracks 
being far removed, giving evidences of long leaps. We have frequently- 
observed where it had made long galleries in the deep snow for twenty 
or thirty yards, and thus in going from one burrow to another, instead of 
travelling over the surface, it had constructed for itself a kind of tunnel 
beneath. 
The Ermine is easily taken in any kind of trap. We have on seve- 
ral occasions, when observing one peeping at us from its secure hole in 
the wall, kept it gazing until a servant brought a box trap baited 
with a bird or piece of meat, which was placed within a few feet of its 
retreat. The Ermine, after eyeing the trap for a few moments, gradually 
approached it, then after two or three hasty springs backwards returned 
stealthily into the trap, seized the bait, and was caught. We find in our 
note-book the following memorandum : “On the 19th June, 1846, we baited 
a large wire trap with maize : on visiting the trap on the following day 
we found it had caught seven young rats and a Weasel ; the throats of 
the former had all been cut by the Weasel, and their Wood sucked; but 
what appeared strange to us, the Weasel itself was also dead. The rats 
had been attracted by the bait : the Weasel went into the trap and killed 
them ; and whether it met its death by excessive gluttony, or from a wound 
inflicted by its host of enemies, we are unable to determine. 
This species does not appear to be very abundant any where. We have 
seldom found more than two or three on any farm in the Northern or 
Eastern States. We have ascertained that the immense number of tracks 
often seen in the snow in particular localities were made by a single ani- 
