_The Mousehunt._--I should feel much obliged to any reader of "N. & Q." who
would refer me to any mention of in print, or give me any information from
his own personal experience, respecting a small animal of the weasel tribe
called the mousehunt, an animal apparently but little known; it is scarcely
half the size of the common weasel, and of a pale mouse-colour. It is said
to be well known in Suffolk, whence, however, after some trouble, I have
been unsuccessful in obtaining a specimen; young stoats or weasels having
been sent me instead of it. I could not find a specimen in the British
Museum. Some years ago I saw two in Glamorganshire; one escaped me; the
other had been killed by a ferret, but unfortunately I neglected to
preserve it. Near the same spot last year a pair of them began making their
nest, but being disturbed by some workmen employed in clearing out the
drain in which they had ensconced themselves, were lost sight of and
escaped.
Mr. Colquhoun, in _The Moor and the Loch_, ed. 1851, says:
"The English peasantry assert that there are two kinds of weasel, one
very small, called a 'cane,' or 'the mousekiller.' This idea, I have no
doubt, is erroneous, and the 'mousekillers' are only the young ones of
the year, numbers of these half-grown weasels appearing in summer and
autumn."
The only description I have met with in print is in _Bell's Life_ of Dec.
7, 1851, where "Scrutator," in No. 15. of his Letters "On the Management of
Horses, Hounds, &c.," writes:
"I know only of one species of stoat, but I have certainly seen more
than one species of weasel.... There is one species of weasel so small
that it can easily follow mice into their holes; and one of these, not
a month ago, I watched go into a mouse's hole in an open grass field.
Seeing something hopping along in the grass, which I took for a large
long-tailed field mouse, I stood still as it was approaching my
position, and when within a foot or two of the spot on which I was
standing, so that I could have a full view of the animal, a very small
weasel appeared, and quickly disappeared again in a tuft of grass. On
searching the spot I discovered a mousehole, in which Mr. Weasel had
made his exit."