§70 
VOISCAV. 
they are sometimes obliged to procure an inter- 
course between these two animals,, to improve the 
breed of the latter, which,, by long confinement, 
is sometimes seen to abate of its rapacious disposi- 
tion. 
However this be, the polecat seems by much 
the more pleasing animal of the two ; for although 
the long slender shape of all these vermin tribes 
gives them a very disagreeable appearance, yet the 
softness and colour of the hair in some of them 
atones for the defect, and renders them, if not 
pretty, at least not frightful. The polecat, for 
the most part, is of a deep chocolate colour ; it is 
white about the mouth ; the cars are short, rounded, 
and tipped with white ; a little beyond the corners 
of the mouth, a strine begins, which runs back- 
ward, partly white and partly yellow. 
It is very destructive to young game of all kinds ; 
but the rabbit seems to be its favourite prey ; a 
single polecat is often sufficient to destroy a whole 
warren; for, with that insatiable thirst for blood 
which is natural to all the weasel kind, it kills 
much more than it can devour ; and I have seen 
twenty rabbits at a time taken out dead, which 
they had destroyed, and that by a wound which 
was hardly perceptible. Their size, however, 
which is so much larger than the weasel, renders 
their retreats near houses much more precarious; 
although I have seen them burrow near a village, 
so as scarcely to be extirpated. But, in general, 
they reside in woods or thick brakes, making holes 
under ground of about two yards deep, commonly 
ending among the roots of large trees, for greater 
security. In winter they frequent houses, and 
make a common practice of robbing the hen-roost 
and the dairy. 
The polecat is particularly destructive among 
pigeons, when it gets into a dove-house ; without 
