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THE STORY OF THE WEASEL, 
No one would think, on seeing a weasel for the first time, that the 
graceful, slender little animal, with its brown back, pretty, white throat, 
funny face, and sparkling eyes, was such a fierce, bloodthirsty creature. But 
that little head is full of murderous designs, and has the courage of a giant. 
Rats and mice are everywhere hunted out and destroyed.by the weasel. It 
inflicts a bite on the head which pierces the brain, and seldom fails to lay 
the victim dead at its feet by one stroke. 
The weasel is also a destroyer of newly-hatched chickens and young 
ducks, as well as of the smaller feathered tribe; and although it does good 
service in keeping down the mice, it is a bad neighbor to the hare and rabbit- 
warren. It is a most active and persevering hunter; few' trees will stop it 
when in search of birds’ nests, which it robs, not only by sucking the eggs, 
but by carrying off the young. 
The weasel is excessively useful to farmers on account of its unrelenting 
war on rats and mice, and in an incredibly short space of time it extirpates 
them from a barn or stack. It hunts by scent like dogs, and tracks the 
unfortunate rat with the most deadly certainty. It is so courageous that 
it will even attack men, and is by no means a despicable antagonist, as its 
instinct invariably leads it to dash at the throat, where a bite from its long 
sharp teeth is always dangerous. 
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