72 The Animal-Lore of Shakspeare’s Time. 
known under a variety of names, and do not appear to 
have been clearly distinguished one from another. 
Harrison, in his description of England ( HoKnshed's 
Chronicles , vol. i. p. 377, ed. 1577), says, “ I might here 
entreat largelie of other vermine, as the polcat, the 
miniver, the weasell, stote (fulmart), squirrell, fitchew, 
and such like.” 
A correspondent in » Notes and Queries, 1853, started 
a somewhat unprofitable discussion by an 
Mousehunt. . . , 1 „ . - J 
inquiry as to the meaning ot the word mouse- 
hunt in Borneo and Juliet (iv. 4, 11):— 
“ Ay, yon have been a mousehunt in your time; 
But I will watch you from such watching now.” 
One suggestion was that the Mousehunt was a little 
animal of the weasel species, about the length of a rat, 
with a long and hairy tail, bushy at the tip. Another, 
quoting Fennell’s Natural History, asserted that the 
reference was to the beech-marten. A third considered 
that this was a mistake, and that the mousehunt, if any 
actual animal of that name exists, is only the young of 
the common weasel. In The Storye of Beynard the Foxe, 
as it was printed by Caxton in 1481, an animal named 
the mousehunt appears in the list of Master Reynard’s 
relations:— 
“ Rukenawe [the she-ape, Reynard’s aunt] called hem [them] forth 
and sayde, Welcome, my dere chyldren; come forth and stande by 
Reynard your der nevew. Thenne sayd she, Come forth, alle ye that 
ben of my kynne and Reynarts ; and late us praye the kynge that he 
wille doo to Reynard ryght of the lande. Tho cam forth many a beest 
anon, as the squyrel, the musehont, the fychews, the martron, the 
bever wyth his wyf Ordegale, the genete [wild cat], the ostrole, the 
boussyng and the fyret.” (Ed. Percy Society, 1844, vol. xii. p. 109.) 
In explanation of the appearance of the beaver in such 
disreputable company, it is stated that he only attended 
in deference to the command of Dame Rukenawe. Rey- 
