Ferret and Polecat. 
71 
In The Seven Bays of the Week , an interlude performed 
at Oxford in 1607, the word sable occurs in connexion 
with mourning. But as the rhyme is evidently the 
author’s first consideration, it is not easy to decide 
whether a noun or an adjective is intended by the name. 
Night enters, and thus announces himself:—• 
“ Blacke Night, as black as any mourninge sable is, 
Comes for to prompt the actors if they stumble ; 
For who can see what Night doth say, or able is 
To heare how Night doth walke about and mumble.” 
The Ferret, originally a native of Africa, was brought 
into Spain with the design of freeing the 
latter country from the multitudes of rabbits 
that infested it. Thence the whole of Europe was in 
time stocked. 
The solitary reference to this animal by Shakspeare 
is more expressive than polite. Brutus describes Cicero 
as looking— 
“ With such ferret and such fiery eyes 
As we have seen him in the Capitol, 
Being cross’d in conference by some senators.” 
(Julius Ccesar f i. 2, 186.) 
The Polecat was called also, on account of its strong 
scent, the foulmartin or foumart, and fitchet 
n, Polecat, 
or fitchew. 
The first name is derived by some authorities from 
the French words, poule and chat , and has been bestowed 
on this animal on account of the destruction it works 
in hen-roosts. Shakspeare uses the word polecat only as 
a term of abuse. The foul-mouthed Thersites exclaims:— 
“ To be a dog, a mule, a cat, a fitchew, a toad, a lizard, an owl, a 
puttock, or a herring without a roe, I would not care: but to be 
Menelaus! I would conspire against destiny.” (Troilus and Cressida, 
v. 1, 64.) 
The animals of the weasel tribe found in England are 
