The rats had doubtless turned to give him fight,
and would probably have been a match for him.
The weasel seems to track its game by scent. A hunter of my
acquaintance was one day sitting in the woods, when he saw
a red squirrel run with great speed up a tree near him, and out
upon a long branch, from which he leaped to some rocks, and disappeared
beneath them. In a moment a weasel came in fu1l course upon his trail,
ran up the tree, then out along the branch, from the end of which he
leaped to the rocks as the squirrel did, and plunged beneath them.
Doubtless the squirrel fell a prey to him. The squirrel's best game
would have been to have kept to the higher tree-tops, where he could
easily have distanced the weasel. But beneath the rocks he stood a
very poor chance. I have often wondered what keeps such an animal as
the weasel in check, for weasels are quite rare. They never need go
hungry, for rats and squirrels and mice and birds are everywhere.
They probably do not fall a prey to any other animal, and very rarely
to man.
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