a2 2 
grown, which were nearly twice the size of the 
average weasel. I do not think the slight varia- 
tion in length of the tail counts for anything, as 
I have taken some with tails much longer than 
others. I have always regarded this as merely 
individual variation. To show how much larger 
some animals are than the average, anyone who 
has killed ’coons will agree that a ‘coon which 
weighs from fifteen to twenty pounds is a large 
‘coon, yet I have had the skins of two which 
weighed thirty-six pounds each, and two years 
ago one was taken near here which, after having 
the entire entrails removed, weighed thirty-two 
pounds. J think there is a great deal more sense 
in separating men into varieties by their size than 
there is in doing the same by weasels. 
Weasels usually hunt separately and I think 
it extremely rare for them to be found near each 
other except at the mating season or when a 
mother is with her young. I once saw two to- 
gether in the fall, but in the winter have never 
seen tracks where two had traveled in company, 
though I have often found where two sable had 
been traveling in company and have seen three 
adult mink together, which, indeed, in the spring 
often travel in pairs. 
Farmers generally do not know to what extent 
they are indebted to weasels for protection from 
rats and mice. Very lately I was at a house situ- 
ated at least a fourth of a mile from any other 
house and since spring they had lost over 200 
chickens by rats which had suddenly come from 
no one knows where and which they could not 
get rid of by poison or cats. In a few days a 
single weasel would have cleared the premises 
of rats, and yet if one should happen to visit 
them the average farmer would shoot the weasel 
on sight. I like to see a square deal among ani- 
mals as among men, and I know of no bird or 
mammal which does as much good to farmers or 
is more misjudged. Just let one be seen about 
farm buildings and the cry is to kill him or he 
will kill our hens. The fact is, that it is the rats 
and mice he is after and not the hens, and when 
he has cleaned up the premises he will not stay 
to trouble the poultry. Manty Harpy. 

The hatred of the weasel—in many respects 
entirely unreasoning—may perhaps have come 
down to us from our English ancestors, who re- 
gard it as most destructive to game. The belief 
probably arises largely from his pursuit of the 
rabbit, of which many tales are told. English 
writers on game preserving declare with em- 
phasis that the thirst of the weasel for blood is 
insatiable—certainly not a remarkable character- 
istic when we realize that the weasel is carnivor- 
ous and hunts and kills his own prey. 
In a rabbit warren it is said that a weasel will 
take up the trail of a single rabbit and follow this 
through the winding subterranean galleries of the 
burrow up and down, in and out, never leaving 
the trail. The rabbit may abandon the burrow 
and hide in a hedge, or may come out and re- 
enter another hole, but the weasel—which follows 
altogether by scent and not very rapidly—seems 
never to lose the trail. During the pursuit he 
may pass a dozen other rabbits, but they pay little 
or no attention to him and he wholly ignores 
them, and at last the rabbit, worn out, is over- 
taken and killed by a bite in the neck behind the 
ear. 
In that interesting volume, “The Game Keeper 
at Home,” it is stated that in England weasels 
hunt in company: 
“Weasels frequently hunt in couples and some- 
times more than two will work together. I once 
saw five and heard of eight. The five I saw were 
working with sandy bank drilled with holes from 
which the rabbits, in wild alarm, were darting in 
all directions. The weasels raced from hole to hole 
and along the sides of the bank exactly like a 
pack of hounds and seemed intensely excited. 
Their manner of hunting resembles the motions 
of ants; these insects run a little way very swiftly 
then stop, turn to the right or the left, make a 
short detour, and afterward on again in a straight 
line. So the pack of weasels darted forward, 
stopped, went from side to side, and then on a 
yard or two and repeated the process. To see 
their reddish heads thrust every moment from 
the holes then withdrawn to reappear up another 
FOREST AND STREAM: 
[FEeB. 10, 1906. 

would have been amusing had it not been for the 
reflection that their frisky tricks would assuredly 
end in death. They ran their quarry out of the 
bank and into a wood, where I lost sight of them. 
The pack of eight were seen by a laborer return- 
ing down a woodland lane from work one after- 
noon. He told me he got into the ditch half from 
curiosity to watch .them and half from fear— 
laughable as that may seem—for he had heard the 
old people tell stories of men in the days when 
the corn was kept for years and years in barns 
and so bred hundreds of rats, being attacked by 
those vicious brutes. He said they made a noise 
crying to each other in short, sharp, snappy 
sounds; but the pack of five I myself saw hunted 
in silence.” 

Tus story of the weasel’s way with a squirrel 
is told by our contributor, J. Quay: One fine 
afternoon, near evening, 1 saw what appeared to 
be two red squirrels having a chase up a tree. 
The chase was an eager one, however, and at- 
tracted my attention; and as they ascended to the 
topmost limb and followed out to its extremity, I 
saw that my foremost was a poor chipmunk, and 
the other a weasel with a black tipped tail. I felt 
great apprehension and wonder as to what would 
be the result at the limb’s extremity, not thinking 
but that the finale was’ there to come. But this 
was not so. With but slight hesitation, and with 
a sharp weak cry, the chipmunk sprang from the 
limb into the air, his legs wide extended, and fell 
a distance of some forty feet to the ground. 
Bravo! I saw that he was apparently unhurt, and 
that he made directly to another tree nearby, and 
then turned to see if the weasel was to follow. 
No, not by the aerial route, but quick as possible, 
and without a moment’s hesitation, he turned 
around and ran down the tree to the ground. By 
this time the chipmunk was nestled on a limb 
about half way up the second tree, and provided 
the weasel had trouble to find him, I thought the 
outlook not so bad for the pursued, if he could 
stand such leaps, and the other would not take 
them. But the weasel followed to the correct 
tree, notwithstanding there were numerous others 
about, as readily as a hound would follow a 
scented fox. The poor fellow realized his danger 
quickly, and with notes of alarm ran again to 
the topmost limb’s extremity, the pursuer close 
behind. Again was the leap taken, this time into 
a clump of bushes, but the flyer was again unhurt 
and made for a third tree not far off, which he 
ascended. There the first operations were gone 
through with, with the variation of a slip and a 
fall, in his eagerness, by the weasel from a height 
of about twenty feet. No time was lost in conse- 
quence of this mishap, as he had at once reascend- 
ed, tireless of fate, and apparently bound up soul 
and body in his murderous pursuit. How eager 
is this chase for life, and this flight from death! 
What tragic interest centers in such a contest 
where there is but one ending if might but gets 
the right, or the opportunity. I watched with in- 
creasing interest the result of this search for a 
victim’s blood; and as the scene shifted to a 
stone wall, in which the chipmunk hid and along 
which the weasel searched and craned his long 
neck very like a snake, in and out among the 
stones, in a vain effort to find his victim. I had 
hopes that an escape from his pursuit might yet 
occur. It was not long, however, before a slight 
rustling could be heard among the leaves over 
the wall, which was significant although it was 
attended by no cry or other noise; and soon 
thereafter appeared the successful hunter upon the 
wall, bearing high by the nape of the neck his 
victim, which he carried in difficult leaps down 
the wall and over the grass to his hidden nest. 
Fishing Spiders. 
ProFessor Berc, in Buenos Ayres, has discov- 
ered a spider which at times practices fishing. In 
shallow places it spins between stones a _ two- 
winged conical net, on which it runs in the water 
and captures small fish, tadpoles, etc. That it 
understands its trade well is shown by the nu- 
merous shrivelled skins of the little eel pouts 
which lie about on the web of the net.—Deutsche 
Fischerei Zeitung. 
TREES IN WINTER. 
BY CLARENCE M,. WEED. 


1V.—The Birches. 
No FAMILY of trees is more beautiful or more 
characteristic in: winter than that of the birches. 
The outer bark of the trunks and larger branches 
of each of our native species is distinctive and 
attractive, while the smaller branches and the 
twigs lend a peculiar charm to our winter land- 
scapes. The various sorts are easily distinguished 
from each other in winter when we can refer to 
the whole tree, and even the small branches of 
nearly all the species may readily be determined. 
In addition to the birches the birch family in- 
cludes the hornbeam, hop-hornbeam, alders and 
hazelnuts. 
Gray Birch. 
The gray birch, which is also called at times 
the small white birch, poplar birch, poverty birch. 
and Oldfield birch, is one of the most abundant 
trees in northern fields and woods. It springs up 
in great abundance in sandy’ lands where the 
small seeds have been left by the wind. In win- 

Twig of Gray Birch in Spring. 
Showing blossoming pollen-bearing catkin at tip; blos- 
soming seed-bearing catkin projecting upward; and two 
last year’s fruiting catkins projecting downward. 
ter the tree is distinguished by the slender dark 
brown or blackish branches and the chalk-white © 
trunk with the bark of the latter not easily peeled 
off, as it is in the case of the canoe or paper-white 
birch. At the junction of the branches with the 
trunk there are heavy black markings running 
downward in a way to suggest an inverted V. In 
summer the tree is easily known by its character- 
istic leaves, which are in the shape of a long tri- 
angle with the tip long and slender. 
The gray birch is justly a favorite with the art- 
ists who delight to paint it and the poets who 
delight to sing its praises. Its delicate grace of 
leaf and branch with the bright light reflected 
from the varnished surface of the foliage render 
it one of the most pleasing features of our sum- 
mer landscapes. It was this tree of which James 
Russell Lowell wrote: 
“Thy shadow scarce seems shade, thy pattering leaflets 
Sprinkle their gathered sunshine o’er my senses, 
And Nature gives me all her summer confidences.” 
Canoe Birch. 
“The great triumphs of the birch,’ wrote John 
Burroughs in one of his most delightful para- 
graphs, “is the bark canoe. The design of a sav- 
age, it yet looks like the thought of a poet, and 
its grace and fitness haunt the imagination.” No 
one needs to be told that the paper-white birch 
with its beautiful bark made possible this triumph 
of primitive handicraft. And no hunter needs to 
be told of the manifold uses to which the bark 
is put in the exigencies of life in the woods, or 
that the beauty of the trees forms one of the most 
important elements of the landscape pictures 
along northern lakes and rivers. A group of 
young trees growing slenderly erect along the 
border of the forest is sure to call to mind Coler- 
idge’s well known phrase regarding the English 
birch, which he called “the lady of the woods.” 
In addition to the loosely-peeling, glistening 
white bark the-paper birch may be known by the 
