Weasel Families
As the summer wanes, families of stoats and weasels break up, and parents cease to have any dealings with their offspring. This severance of the family ties throws a light upon wild creatures and their young. Having given their young ones a good start in life, many seem to dismiss them from their minds. One grove will not nurture two robins, and the day comes when Cock Robin will drive his young hopeful into the world, and will attack him fiercely if he dare again approach his presence. The wild rabbit that on one day, in defence of her young ones, faces and drives away a stoat, her deadliest foe, on the next day leaves them to the mercy of fate—a new family having arrived. The mother stoat stays with her young ones for a long while, sometimes until they are much larger than herself; but sooner or later comes the day of parting.
