The weasels, stoats, polecats, minks, and the like form a group distinctly northern, except that one species ranges southward into the Andes. They do their work on the ground, although some are able to climb trees. Slender, lithe, sharp-clawed, secretively colored, and endowed with strength, speed and cleverness, the weasels are the scourge and terror of the ground-keeping animals, and do more than any other class of agents to restrain mice, gophers and similar nuisances. Europe and Siberia have the stoat, the ermine-weasel and the polecat, a domestic form of which is the ferret; and we have in North America several distinct weasels, as the short-tailed and the long-tailed of the East, the bridled weasel of the Pacific Coast, the black-footed ferret of the plains, and the little six-inch "mouse hunter" of the Northwest, which is the smallest carnivore known. All the northern weasels become pure white in winter when they live in a region where the snow lies continuously and the cold is steady; but south of that line they do not change color. The change from the summer brown to the winter white—when they become "ermines"—is produced by an actual loss of color in the hair; but the spring change back to brown is effected by shedding the old white hair and getting a new brown coat. In the Middle Ages ermine fur was permitted to be worn only by royalty, and later by judges on the bench. A somewhat different, and strictly American, species is the mink. It is somewhat less slender than the weasels, and is semiaquatic in habits, dwelling always near streams, where it feeds on earthworms, frogs, and fishes. Having this kind of food, and being keen-witted and secretive, it has been able to continue to exist in the midst of civilization, and the vast number of its dark pelts that come to the fur market are nearly all got by farmers' boys in traps set near home.
The most valuable of the fur bearers, however, are those that belong to the forests of the North and dwell in trees—the sables, martens, and pekans. The sable is Siberian, the marten is North European, and the pine marten and pekan are North American. The first three are hardly distinguishable, each averaging about eighteen inches in length, exclusive of the long, furry tail, and are brown, somewhat lighter on the underparts, the breast-spot of the Canadian species being orange. The body is long and supple, the legs short and the toes separate, with sharp, long claws, as becomes so expert a tree-climber. The martens exhibit great agility and grace in their movements, and live usually in trees, furnishing with a bed of leaves a hollow in a lofty decaying trunk or sometimes in a rocky crevice. Here the young are brought forth in litters of six or eight early each spring. In winter, however, they descend daily, and hunt rabbits and other prey over the snow. This is particularly true of the big Canadian pekan, or "fisher" marten, which is the least common of the tribe. These martens fade away as civilization advances toward their forest retreats, and now are to be obtained only in the wildest parts of the Canadian woods; and the effort to tame and breed them in captivity has met with little success.
CIVETS, MONGOOSES AND HYENAS
This group of Old World animals represents the product of lines of descent that had their origin very near that of the dogs, as is particularly evident in the history of the hyenas (family Hyænidæ). But between the noble courage and fidelity of the dog and the cowardly brutishness of the hyena lies a great distance in character—as it appears from the human point of view. Of course it will not do to apply our highly elaborated standards to a moral estimate of wild animal behavior, or to use seriously such terms as "cruel," "selfish," and the like, especially in the case of the predatory beasts that work hard for their captures, must kill them the best way they can, and must satisfy their own wants before yielding place to rivals or inferiors; yet we cannot help admiring certain qualities in some of them and disliking others, as if they were inspired by praiseworthy or blameworthy motives. In the character of the hyenas, thus criticised, there is nothing admirable except their extraordinary brute strength. This is shown chiefly in their big heads, where their jaws are filled with teeth of extraordinary size, and are worked by muscles that enable them to crunch the leg bones of an ox, or indent and bend thick iron, of which amazing examples are given by Selous, Neuman and other African sportsmen. Otherwise they are the meanest of brutes, hated and despised by every man and beast in the countries (Africa and southern Asia) that they afflict.
Related to them, but very different in every way are the many species of ichneumons and civets (family Viverridæ) of the same parts of the world. The ichneumons, or mongooses, are small, dark-colored, unspotted animals, varying in size from that of a weasel to the bigness of a house cat, with compact bodies and pointed muzzles. They are active, bold and predacious, living on small game of every sort, and making their homes in holes in the ground. They are noted for their animosity to reptiles, and in ancient Egypt were protected as "sacred" because they killed asps and hunted for and ate crocodiles' eggs. The old term "ichneumon" has disappeared, however, in favor of the term "mongoose," which is the name of the East Indian species famous for snake killing. It is able, by its astonishing quickness, to spring upon and kill a cobra, even when that deadly snake is prepared to strike at its little foe. Mongooses were colonized in Jamaica and other West Indian islands years ago to destroy the rats that were a plague in the sugar plantations; but they presently turned their attention to the poultry as easier game, and became a greater nuisance than the rats. These fierce little snake killers constitute the "herpestine" section of the family.
| Photo, Keystone View Co. |
| BAT WITH YOUNG BAT IN EACH POUCH, FOUND HANGING TO A TELEGRAPH WIRE, NEAR LINCOLN, NEBRASKA |
The "viverrine" section contains the civets, which have elongated bodies, terrierlike heads, small, round, five-toed feet with imperfectly sheathed claws, long, often bushy tails, and coats of rough dark-colored hair marked with blackish stripes, bars, or squarish blotches. The species are numerous, and varied, those of central Africa, called "genets," resembling weasels. They include the linsangs of the East Indies, with soft, fawn-colored fur; several East Indian species inhabiting trees and going by the name of "tree cats" and "toddy cats," one of which is domesticated as a mouser and pretty pet by the natives; and the black binturong of the Orient, which is the only animal of the Old World, not a marsupial, that has a prehensile tail.