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*' Tt is, however, sometimes itself the prey of hawks, vut the following fact shows that 
Violence and rapine, even when accompanied by superior strength, are not always a 
match for the ingenuity of an inferior enemy. As a gentleman of the name of Pinder, 
then residing at Bloxworth, in Dorsetshire, was riding over his grounds, he saw, at a 
short distance from him, a kite pounce upon some object on the ground, and rise with it 
in its talons. In a few minutes, however, the kite began to show signs of great uneasi- 
ness, rising rapidly in the air, or as quickly falling, and wheeling irregularly around, 
whilst tt was evidently endeavoring to force some obnoxious thing from it with its feet. 
After a short but sharp contest, the kite fell suddenly to the earth, not far from where 
Mr. Pinder was intently watching the manwuvre. He instantly rode up to the spot, 
when a Weasel ran away from the kite, apparently unkurt, leaving the bird dead, with 
a hole eaten through the skin under the wing, and the large blood-vessels of the vart 
torn through.” 
Accerding to the same author, the female Weasel brings ferth four or 
five young, and is reported to breed mere than once each year. The nest 
is a hele in a bank, er perhaps in a hollow tree, lined with leaves and 
herbage. She defends her young even to the sacrifice of her own life, 
rushing from her nest and fastening upon the nose or lips of whatever 
animal may assail her. 
Dr. Coues remarks that the name ‘‘ Weasel” should, in strictness, be 
given to the present species, as distinguished from its allies, the Stoats 
and Ferrets, although it has come to have rather a generic application 
to the various species of the same immediate group. The derivation 
is obscure. Webster does not give the meaning, but suggests that the 
German Wiese is a meadow. The vernacular names of this species are 
fully given in the synonymy. 
Geographical Distribution.—This animal is of circumpolar distribution. 
It is found in the northern parts of the United States, in British Amer- 
ea and Alaska, and the northern parts of the Old World. 
Dr. Coues remarks, in his Monograph of North American Mustelide, 
that “the total lack of citations of this species from southern or even 
Middle districts in the United States, is an evidence, though of a nega- 
tive character, of the geographical distribution at present.assigned,” 
evidently not having seen Dr. Kirtland’s Report of the Mammals of Ohio, 
in which the Weasel is included under the name Mustela vulgaris, and 
with the note that “the Weasel is becoming more common as the country 
becomes populated.” In the same report, Dr. Kirtland, speaking of the 
Ermine, under the name Mustela erminea, says: “This beautiful animal 
is occasionally met with, but is mistaken for a White Weasel.” 
Dr. Wheaton killed an animal of this genus in May, 1860, at Black 
Hand Rock, on the borders of Licking and Muskingum counties, Ohio, 
which he was not able to preserve, and which at the time he took to be 
the Least Weasel. He describes it as “smaller than the Chipmunk, 
