THE WEASEL TRIBE
Almost all the animals which belong to this tribe have very long,
slender bodies and very short legs; and the reason is a simple one. They
feed on living prey, which they often have to follow through a long and
winding burrow. Now if they had stout bodies or long legs they could not
do this. Most likely they could not enter the burrow at all; and even if
they did so they would be almost sure to find, before they had gone very
far, that they could neither move forward or backward. But, having such
snake-like bodies and such very short limbs, they can wind their way
through the tunnels without any difficulty, and then spring upon their
victim at the end.
They always try to seize their prey by the throat, in order to tear open
the great blood-vessels which pass through that part of the body. One
who had a personal experience of the strength and sharpness of their
teeth thus tells it: "I was walking through a park one day early in the
autumn, when I noticed that the dead leaves under a tree were tossing
and tumbling about in a very curious manner. On going a little closer I
found that a mother weasel and her little ones were playing together.
When I came up of course they all ran away. So I ran after them, and
caught one of the little animals by putting my foot on it, just hard
enough to hold it down on the ground without hurting it. And immediately
the little creature, which was only about six inches long, twisted
itself round, and drove its sharp teeth into the edge of the sole of my
shoe, both from above and below. So that if I had done what I thought of
doing at first and had stooped to pick it up, its teeth would certainly
have met in my finger."
The weasel is common in many parts of the United States as well as in
Europe. In some regions you can scarcely take a walk along the roads or
through the fields without catching sight of it. Very likely it will
poke its head out of a hole in the bank at the side of the road, and
watch you in the most inquisitive manner as you go past. Or you may
notice it slipping in and out of the herbage at the foot of a hedge, as
it searches for the small creatures on which it feeds. But very often it
will leave the hedge, and follow a mole along its burrow. Or it will
make its way to a wheatstack, and pursue the mice through their "runs."
And it is very fond of going out bird's-nesting, and robbing the nests
of the eggs or little ones which they contain. But the weasel is not
always successful when he sets out on one of these expeditions. While
coming down Helvellyn, a mountain in England, a writer witnessed a
strange little scene. "Hearing a loud chattering," he says, "I looked
up, and saw just above me a pair of stonechats and a weasel. Evidently
the weasel had come too near the nest of the birds, and they were trying
to entice him away. And this is how they managed it. First the cock bird
sat down on a stone about a yard in front of the weasel, and began to
flap his wings, and to chatter and scream. The weasel immediately darted
at him, and the bird flew away. Next the hen bird sat down on another
stone a yard farther on, and began to flap her wings and to chatter and
scream. Then the weasel darted at her, and _she_ flew away. As soon
as she had gone the cock came back, sat on a third stone, and played the
same trick again. And so the two birds went on over and over again, till
they got the weasel far up the mountain side, quite two hundred yards
from the nest, when they quietly left him and flew away together.
"Wasn't it clever of them? And the odd thing was that the weasel never
realized that he was being taken in, but evidently thought he was going
to catch one of the birds every time that he darted at them."
When fully grown the European weasel is from eight to ten inches long,
about one-fourth of that length being occupied by the tail. The fur of
the upper parts of the body is brownish red in color, while that of the
throat and lower surface is white.
In the United States are found various species of weasels, the
largest of which is called the New York weasel. The length of the male
is sixteen inches, that of the female thirteen inches, the tail being
more than one-third of the total length. It is also called the
long-tailed weasel. The smallest species is the least weasel, only six
inches long. Both bear much resemblance to stoats. "The various kinds of
weasels in this country," say Stone and Cram in their "American
Animals," "are much alike in their habits.... They hunt tirelessly,
following their prey by scent, and kill for the mere joy of killing,
often leaving their victims uneaten and hurrying on for more."
THE STOAT, OR ERMINE
This is the commonest and most widely distributed of all the weasel
tribe. The name is British. The fur of the lower parts of the stoat's
body is pale yellow instead of white, while the tip of the tail is
black. In very cold countries the whole of the fur becomes white in
winter, like that of the arctic fox, the tip of the tail alone excepted.
Indeed, the famous ermine fur which we value so highly, and which even
kings wear when they put on their robes of state, is nothing but the
coat of the stoat in its winter dress.
The stoat preys upon rather larger animals than do other weasels, and
many a hare and rabbit falls victim to its sharp little fangs. Strange
to say, when one of these creatures is being followed by a stoat it
seems almost paralyzed with fear, and instead of making its escape by
dashing away at its utmost speed, drags itself slowly and painfully over
the ground, uttering shrill cries of terror, although it has not been
injured at all.
In poultry-yards the stoat is sometimes terribly mischievous. One stoat
has been known to destroy as many as forty fowls in a single night. So
both the gamekeeper and the farmer have very good reason for disliking
it. But in some ways it is really very useful. It kills large numbers of
mice and rats and voles, which often do such damage in the fields. And
if we could set the good which it does against the evil, we should find
that the former more than makes up for the latter.
THE POLECAT
This animal was formerly very common in Great Britain. But owing to its
mischievous habits it has been greatly persecuted, and now it is very
seldom met with. It is a good deal larger than the stoat, being nearly
two feet in length from the nose to the tip of the tail, and you would
think, on looking at it, that its fur was brown, yet it scarcely has a
brown hair on the whole of its body. The fact is that the long outer
hairs are so dark as to be almost black, while the soft under-fur next
the skin is pale yellow; and as the inner coat shows through the outer
one, the effect is very much the same as if the whole of the fur were
brown.
The polecat is sometimes called the foumart. This name is formed from
the two words foul marten, and has been given to the animal because it
looks like a marten, and has a most foul and disagreeable smell. In its
habits it is very much like the stoat. It comes out chiefly by night,
and preys upon any birds or small animals which it may meet with,
following rabbits down their burrows, tracking hares to their "forms,"
and sometimes killing nearly all the poultry, geese, and turkeys in a
farmyard. Early in April it makes a kind of nest in a deserted
rabbit-hole, or in a crevice among the rocks, and there brings up its
family of from three to eight little ones.
The animal called polecat in North America is the skunk, of which we
shall speak soon; the name is particularly applied to the common skunk
of the Northeastern States and Canada.
THE FERRET
You know that the ferret is much used in hunting rabbits and rats. It
appears to be really a variety of the polecat, and is usually of a
yellowish white color with pink eyes. But there is also a brown form,
which is generally called the polecat-ferret. It is known only in a
domesticated form.
In some of the Western United States--Kansas, Colorado, etc.--is found
the black-footed ferret, "often called prairie-dog hunter because its
specialty is the killing of prairie-dogs." It has not become very well
known to animal students, for it dwells in burrows and hunts at night.
MARTENS
Old World martens may be described as large weasels that live in the
trees. One of them, the pine-marten, is still found in the wilder parts
of Great Britain, although it is even scarcer, perhaps, than the
polecat.
This animal is about as big as a cat. But it does not look as large as
it really is, because of the shortness of its legs. In color it is rich
brown above and yellowish white below, while the tail is very long, and
is almost as bushy as that of a squirrel.
Martens are only found in the thickest parts of the forests, and spend
almost the whole of their lives in the trees, running up and down the
trunks, and leaping from bough to bough with the most wonderful
activity. They even make nests among the branches, in which to bring up
their little ones, weaving a quantity of leaves and moss together in
such a way as to make a most cosy little nursery. But it is to be feared
that they are sometimes lazy animals, for just to save themselves
trouble they will turn squirrels or woodpeckers out of their nests, and
take possession of them for themselves.
Martens feed on any small animals which they can find, and have more
than once been known to kill lambs, and even fawns. When they happen to
live near the sea, it is said that they will visit the shore by night in
order to hunt for mussels.
The American sable or pine-marten is about the size of a common domestic
cat, and looks much like a young red fox. It is now rare south of
Northern Canada.
The sable found in the mountainous forests of Northern Asia seems to be
nothing more than a variety of the pine-marten with very long fur. This
fur is so much in request that the animal is greatly persecuted, more
than two thousand skins being sometimes taken in a single season.
[Illustration: TYPES OF FUR BEARERS.
1. Weasel; Ermine. 2. Otter.
3. Wolverine; Glutton. 4. Pine Marten; Sable.
5. Skunk. 6. Badger.]
THE GLUTTON, OR WOLVERENE
You would say that this animal hardly looks like a weasel at all, for it
is very heavily and clumsily built, and, including the tail, is often as
much as four feet long. If you did not know what it was, you might
almost take it for a bear cub with a tail. It is blackish brown in
color, with a lighter band which runs from the shoulders along the sides
and across the flanks, as far as the root of the tail.
"Glutton" is rather an odd name for this creature, isn't it? But
certainly the animal deserves it, for it will go on eating and eating,
long after you would think that it could not possibly swallow a morsel
more. Indeed, a glutton has been known to devour, at a single meal, a
great joint of meat, which would have been more than sufficient for a
lion or a tiger for a whole day! It lives in North America, and also in
Northern Europe and Northern Asia, and the hunters find it a terrible
nuisance, for night after night it will search along a line of traps and
devour all the animals caught in them. Then, too, if they bury a
quantity of provisions in the ground, meaning to come back and fetch
them later on, a glutton is very likely to discover them and dig them
up, while the animal is also fond of visiting their huts while they are
absent, and stealing everything it can carry away.
Blankets, knives, axes, and even saucepans and frying-pans have been
stolen in this way by gluttons, and once one of these animals actually
succeeded in dragging away and hiding a gun! It is even a worse robber,
in fact, than the arctic fox. And it can hardly ever be trapped, because
it is so crafty that it almost always discovers the traps, and either
passes them by or pulls them to pieces, while it is so wary, and so
swift of foot, that the hunter very seldom has a chance of shooting it.
It was formerly supposed that this animal was even more crafty still,
and that it would collect a quantity of the moss of which deer are so
fond, lay it upon the ground as a bait, and hide in the foliage of an
overhanging bough, so as to spring down upon the animals when they
stopped to feed. But this story seems to be quite untrue.
THE RATEL
More curious still is the ratel, which belongs to the family of badgers.
You cannot possibly mistake it if you see it, for all the upper part of
its body is grayish white, and all the lower part is black. So that it
looks rather like a lady wearing a white mantle and a black skirt.
But if the ratel is odd in appearance, it is odder still in habits. If
you go to look at them in a zoo you are sure to find them trotting
leisurely round and round their cage in a perfect circle, one behind the
other. And when they come to a certain spot they always stop, turn head
over heels, pick themselves up, and then run on again. Why they do so
nobody knows, but for hours every day they keep up this singular
performance.
The ratel is very fond of honey, so fond that it is often called the
honey-ratel, or honey-weasel, and it spends a good deal of time in
prowling about in search of the nests of wild bees. You would think that
it would get badly stung by the bees, wouldn't you, when it tore their
nests open and robbed them of their sweet stores? But its coat is so
thick that the insects can scarcely force their stings through it, while
even if they do so there is a thick loose skin under it, and a layer of
fat under that. So it seems quite certain that a ratel never gets stung,
no matter how many nests he may rob.
The animal does not live entirely on honey, however, but also feeds upon
rats, mice, small birds, lizards, and even insects.
Two kinds of ratels are known, one of which lives in Africa and the
other in India.
THE BADGER
The European badger was formerly very common in Great Britain. It was
generally known as the brock, and when we hear of a place called by such
a name as Brockley, or Brockenhurst, we may be quite sure that it was
once inhabited by a great many badgers. Nowadays, however, these
animals are more scarce in Great Britain and only to be found as a
general thing, in the wildest parts of the country; and as they only
come out of their burrows by night, very few people even see them in a
state of freedom. But all over temperate Northern Europe and Asia the
European badger is found.
Their burrows are generally made either in the very thickest part of a
dense forest, or else on the side of a steep cliff which is well covered
with trees. They run for some distance into the ground, and generally
open out into several chambers, while at the end there is always a large
hollow which the animals use as a bedroom. They like to be comfortable,
so they always line this hollow with a good thick layer of dried fern
and dead leaves. You would be quite astonished to find how much of this
bedding is often packed away in the burrow of a single badger.
These animals are most cleanly in their habits, and are very careful not
to take any dirt into their burrows with them. They have been known, for
example, to use a low branch near the entrance as a scraper, and always
to rub their feet upon it before going in. And every now and then they
have a grand house-cleaning, turning out all their bedding, and taking
in a fresh supply.
When the badger is digging, it uses its nose as well as its paws,
shoveling the earth aside with it from time to time. And every now and
then it walks backward to the entrance of the burrow pushing out the
loosened earth in a heap behind it.
The teeth of the European badger are made in a very curious way, for
they interlock with one another just like those of a steel trap. The
jaws, too, are exceedingly strong, so that the animal is able to inflict
a very severe bite. But it is a most peaceable creature, and never
attempts to attack unless it is driven to bay.
As regards food, it will eat almost anything. It seems equally fond of
mice, frogs, lizards, birds' eggs, snails, worms, fruit, beechnuts, and
roots. If it finds a wasps' or a bumblebees' nest, it will dig it up and
devour all the grubs and the food which has been stored up for them,
caring nothing for the stings of the angry insects. And very often
it gathers a quantity of provisions together in a small chamber opening
out of its burrow, which it uses as a larder.
The head of the badger is white, with a broad black streak on either
side, which encloses both the eye and the ear. The body is reddish gray
above, whitish gray on the sides, and blackish brown below, and the
flanks and tail are nearly white. In length it is very nearly three feet
from the muzzle to the tip of the tail.
The American badger, living in the western parts of North America,
resembles its European cousin in nearly all respects, differing from it
chiefly in the form of the teeth, in the habit of eating more flesh, and
in liking open flat country better than the dense forests preferred by
its Old World relation. Another difference is noted by Mr. Hornaday, who
tells us that the American badger "has a savage and sullen disposition,
and as a pet is one of the worst imaginable."
THE SKUNK
Many of the animals of the weasel tribe have a most disagreeable odor;
but there is none whose scent is so horribly disgusting as that of the
skunk.
This is a North American animal of about the size of a cat, with a long,
narrow head, a stoutly built body, and a big bushy tail. In color it is
black, with a white streak on the forehead, a white patch on the neck,
and a broad stripe of the same color running along either side of the
back.
The offensive odor of the skunk is due to a liquid which is stored up in
certain glands near the root of the tail. This liquid can be squirted
out at will to a distance of twelve or fifteen feet, and if the animal
is attacked, or thinks itself in danger, it does not attempt to use its
teeth, but just turns round, raises its tail, and sends a perfect shower
of the vile fluid over its enemy. And it is almost impossible to wash
the smell away. A drop or two once fell on the coat of a dog. The animal
was washed over and over again, most thoroughly, with various kinds of
soap. Yet a week later, when he happened to rub himself against one
of the legs of a table, no one could bear to sit by it afterward.
The skunk seems to know perfectly well how offensive its odor is, and
never runs away if it meets a man, or even a large dog. It just stands
perfectly quiet, like a cat expecting to be stroked, ready to make use
of its evil-smelling fluid if necessary.
This singular animal lives in holes in the ground, making a warm little
nest at the end in which to bring up its young. It feeds upon small
animals, small birds and their eggs, frogs, lizards, and, most of all,
upon insects.
OTTERS
Last among the members of the weasel tribe come the otters. These
animals are specially formed for living in the water. The paws, for
example, are very large and broad, and the toes are fastened together by
means of a kind of web, like that on the foot of a swan or a duck, so
that they form very useful paddles. Then the body is long, lithe, and
almost snake-like, and the tail is so broad and flat that it serves as a
capital rudder, and enables the animal to direct its course. The fur,
too, consists of two coats of hair instead of only one; the outer, which
is composed of long, stiff bristles, lying upon the inner like a very
close thatch, and quite preventing water from passing through. So
although an otter is dripping from head to foot when it comes out of the
water, it never gets really wet.
The animal is wonderfully active in the water, and can easily overtake
and capture the swiftest of fishes. Sometimes it is very destructive,
for when fishes are plentiful it becomes so dainty that it never eats
its victims, but just takes a bite or two from the best part of the
flesh at the back of the neck, and then leaves the rest of the body
lying upon the ground. So fishermen are not at all fond of it, and kill
it whenever they can. But sometimes, when the rivers are very low, or
when the surface of the water is thickly covered with ice, the otters
find it very difficult to obtain a sufficient supply of food. So they
leave the streams and wander far inland, sometimes making their way into
the farmyards, and feasting upon poultry, or even upon young pigs and
lambs. But they only do this when they are in real danger of starvation,
and always return to the river-banks as soon as they can.
The home of the otter is generally situated beneath the spreading roots
of a large tree on the bank of a stream. The animal does not dig a
burrow if it can help it, but prefers to take advantage of some natural
cleft in the ground, at the end of which it makes a nest of flags and
rushes. In this nest from three to five little ones are brought up, and
if you were to lie very quietly on the bank for some little time early
on a warm spring morning, you would very likely see the mother otter
playing with her little ones, or teaching them how to swim and to catch
fish.
The bite of the otter is very severe, and it is almost impossible to
force the animal to loose its hold.
In India there is a kind of otter which is often trained to catch fish
for its master. It is taught, first of all, to pursue an imitation fish
as it is drawn through the water by a string, and to bring it ashore and
lay it down upon the ground. Then a dead fish is substituted for the
false one, and when the otter has learned to bring this to its owner,
and to give it up at the word of command, it is sent in pursuit of a
live fish fastened to a line. And before very long it learns its duties
so thoroughly that it will catch fish after fish, and bring them back
without attempting to eat them, just as a well-trained retriever dog
will bring back the birds or the rabbits which its master has shot.
The otter of North America is still found, but not numerously, in the
Carolinas and Florida, in some Rocky Mountain districts, in British
Columbia and Alaska, and in the Canadian provinces.
There is also a kind of otter which lives in the sea, and is called the
sea-otter. It is also known as the kalan. It is found on the coasts of
the Northern Pacific, and is much larger than the common otter, often
weighing as much as seventy or eighty pounds, and being nearly four feet
in total length. Its fur is the most costly known, a fine pelt being
worth $600 or $800 before dressing. This high price is due partly to the
beauty of the fur, but mainly to its rarity.