Weasel (Mustela nivalis, Linn.).

Although of very similar form to the Stoat, the Weasel may be known by its smaller size and by the absence of the black tip which marks the tail of the Stoat. In colour there is little difference in the two species, except that in the Weasel the upper parts are of a redder brown and the under parts a purer white than in the Stoat. The head is narrower and the legs are shorter, whilst the tail, which is a conspicuous feature of the Stoat, is here less bushy and little more than half the length of the Stoat's appendage. The average length of a mature male is nine or ten inches, to which the tail contributes only two inches; the total length of the female is an inch and a half less than that of the male.

The long, slender body, short limbs, long neck and small head give it a snake-like appearance which is helped by its active, gliding movements. The snake-likeness is accentuated when only the foreparts are seen protruding from a hole. On one occasion as we passed a stack of cord-wood on the edge of a wood, our attention was attracted by a hissing noise. On the level of our face a snake-like head peered out from between the cord-wood; and many persons would, no doubt, assume that a snake had threatened them. But the snarling expression exposed the canine teeth. The cause of the demonstration was not obvious, but we presumed that there were young Weasels in the stack, and that some other predatory animal had threatened danger to them just before we passed, and had aroused the maternal rage. In spite of its small size the bloodthirsty Weasel is full of courage, and will attack creatures larger than itself. We have seen it, in the neighbourhood of a barn, struggling to haul along a nearly full-grown Rat, two or three times its own weight, after it had paralysed its victim by biting through the base of the skull. Sometimes it hunts in couples, or family packs.

Although, like the other members of its family, the Weasel is chiefly nocturnal in habit, it is also active by day, and may be encountered frequently in our rambles. His diet is varied, and includes rats, mice, voles, moles, frogs, small birds, and chickens. He will swim in pursuit of the Water Vole, and will climb trees and bushes in order to rob a bird's nest of eggs or young. Voles and mice are probably his principal victims, his small size enabling him to pursue them in their underground runs. But though the farmer may lose some of his chickens through want of care in protecting fowl-houses and runs, he has in the Weasel a most efficient guardian of his mangold-caves and other consumable stores. Many farmers have testified that their poultry is untouched by the Weasel, but destroyed by the Stoat.

One winter's day in Cornwall we were strolling up a road from the sea that ran between farm buildings, when our attention was attracted to the peculiar movements of some object on the road about a quarter of a mile ahead. Screaming cries came from the rolling mass, and soon we got near enough to see that a struggle was going on between two creatures who were mixed intimately; and finally saw that a large, well-fed Rat had been taken in charge by a lithe little Weasel. Spots of blood on the road and the redness of the rodent's neck-fur showed that the bite that rendered the Rat powerless had been given already. So intent was the Weasel upon the work in hand that for a moment he appeared ignorant of our presence within a few feet. Then he paused, stood upright on his haunches, and looked up with a fierce gleam in his bright black eyes that seemed to say, "Don't interfere, there's a good fellow. I've tackled him fairly—let me finish the job." That slight pause gave the Rat a chance—a very poor one, but he tumbled in a stupid, drunken kind of way towards the hedge, to which the Weasel had been trying to drag him.

[Pl. 46.]][F 70.
Wild Cat.
Felis silvestris.

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