The following notes on the weasel are interesting.
"The weasel climbs trees with great facility, and surprises birds on the nest, sucks the eggs, or carries off the young. It has been asserted that it attacks and destroys snakes: this, however, I believe to be entirely erroneous. I have tried the experiment by placing a weasel and a common snake together in a large cage, in which the former had the opportunity of retiring into a small box in which it was accustomed to sleep. The mutual fear of the two animals kept them at a respectful distance from each other; the snake, however, exhibiting quite as much disposition to be the assailant, as its more formidable companion. At length the weasel gave the snake an occasional slight bite on the side or on the nose, without materially injuring it, and evidently without any instinctive desire to feed upon it; and at length, after they had remained two or three hours together, in the latter part of which they appeared almost indifferent to each other's presence, I took the poor snake away and killed it.
"Far different was this weasel's conduct when a mouse was introduced into the cage: it instantly issued from its little box, and, in a moment, one single bite on the head pierced the brain, and laid the mouse dead without a struggle or a cry. I have observed that when the weasel seizes a small animal, at the instant that the fatal bite is inflicted, it throws its long lithe body over its prey, so as to secure it should the first bite fail: an accident, however, which I have never observed to occur when a mouse has been the victim. The power which the weasel has of bending the head at right angles with the long and flexible, though powerful neck, gives it great advantage in this mode of seizing and killing its smaller prey. It also frequently assumes this position when raising itself on the hinder legs to look around."—p. 143.
"It is, however, sometimes itself the prey of hawks; but 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 on some object on the ground, and rise with it in his talons. In a few moments, however, the kite began to show signs of great uneasiness, rising rapidly in the air, or as quickly falling, and wheeling irregularly round, whilst it was evidently endeavouring 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 manoeuvre. He instantly rode up to the spot, when a weasel ran away from the kite, apparently unhurt, leaving the bird dead, with a hole eaten through the skin under the wing, and the large blood-vessels of the part torn through."—p. 145.
The question of the identity of the common and pine marten is discussed at some length, but without any satisfactory result: both the supposed species are figured.
The wild cat (Felis catus) is the only example of its family. It is one of those animals which appear on the eve of total extermination; the supposed specimens of this creature which so often ornament the doors of our barns being invariably wanderers from some neighbouring cottage or farm-house: none the less deserving of their fate, for having once lived a decent and orderly life.
The fox is the only example of the dog tribe now wild in Britain.
