The weasel with a black tail is called the Ermine or Roselet (_fig.
71._) the ermine when it is white, and the roselet when it is red or
yellowish. Though not so numerous as the common weasel, yet many of
them are found in ancient forests, and sometimes during winter in the
neighbourhood of woods. They are easy to be distinguished at all times,
as the end of their tails are always black, and the extremities of
their ears and feet white.
We have little to add, with respect to this animal, to those
observations we made in treating of the weasel. I kept one for more
than a twelvemonth, which to the last remained wild and also retained
its noisome odour. It is a pretty little animal, and but for the
last circumstance, an agreeable one; it has lively eyes, a pleasing
countenance, and so rapid in its motions that it is impossible for the
eye to follow them. It was always fed with eggs and flesh, but the
latter he would not eat until it became putrid. It disliked honey, and
having kept it three days without any other food, it died after eating
a very little. The skin of this animal is very valuable; it is far
more beautiful than that of the white rabbit; but it very soon changes
somewhat yellow; though indeed the ermines of these climates have
always a yellow shade.
Ermines abound in the north, particularly in Norway, Russia, and
Lapland; where, as every where else, they are red in summer, and white
in winter. They feed upon a species of rats and other small animals,
very numerous in Norway and Lapland, and of which we shall hereafter
treat. They are scarce in temperate, and never found in warm climates.
The animal of the Cape, which Kolbe calls by that name, and whose
flesh he says is wholesome and well-tasted, is not an ermine, but a
different species. The weasels of Cayenne, mentioned by M. Barrere, and
the grey ermines of Tartary and the North of China, mentioned by some
travellers, are also animals different from our weasels and ermines.