Now and again it happens that a ferret is killed accidentally while at
work. And sometimes dead ferrets return to life, health, and strength
in a way to put even cats to shame. We recall how a rat-hating keeper's
wife, notorious for the quality of her right arm, was one day helping
her husband to hunt rats in a wood-shed. On the ferret suddenly popping
out his head from a wood-pile, the good woman lost her wits, and aimed
a shrewd blow with her poker at the ferret's nose. In tears, she left
the poor little beast still and stark. A gardener was asked to bury
it, and plant a carnation over the grave. He found it in the dustbin,
eating the head of a duck.
In another case, a rat-hunter knocked a ferret with a hurdle-stake
from the eaves of a corn-stack far out into a field, where it was
picked up apparently dead, and put into a bag. Some hours later the
body was tipped from the bag into a little grave, when it startled
the gravedigger by gasping for breath. In a little while the corpse
celebrated its resurrection by slaughtering all the pheasants in a pen,
and just as they were beginning to lay. Once we saw a ferret struck
by a pellet from a gun, which went through its head, a hair's-breadth
below the eyes. Both eyes were blinded; yet the ferret recovered, and
lived and worked as long and well as most of its kind. Ferrets are
tougher than they look. The weak spot, no doubt, is in the lungs.
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