Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
a weasel, in full ermine garb, suddenly appeared. Paying little heed to me, the handsome little creature
darted here and there, evidently seeking the trail of a mouse or red squirrel.
From time to time the weasel zipped out through the vents at the back of the generator
house—evidently to check the wood stacked in the adjoining woodshed—then reappeared so suddenly
and unexpectedly that I could only reflect on the appropriateness of the old song “Pop Goes the
Weasel.” Again, I retrieved my camera and took a number of photographs at close range, while the
weasel seemed undeterred either by me or by the camera's flash.
Incidentally, the original of “Pop Goes the Weasel,” quite different from the version that I grew up
with, was written by the nineteenth-century English poet W. R. Mandale:
Up and down the City Road,
In and out the Eagle,
That's the way the money goes—
Pop goes the Weasel.
As already noted, many predators feed on weasels. However, domestic cats seldom seem to eat weasels
which they've killed. On at least three occasions I found weasels in their ermine coats lying dead on
our barn floor. Obviously killed by one of our cats, they had no marks on them except a bite in the neck.
My suspicion is that the weasels' strong scent, so characteristic of their family, caused the well-fed cats
to turn up their fussy feline noses at such fare. Wild predators, of course, can't often afford to be so
fastidious!
Although they are victims of a great deal of bad publicity, much can be said in behalf of weasels.
They're an important means of controlling mice, rats, and other small rodents, and this more than com-
pensates for their occasional raids on poultry. Indeed, although weasels certainly do kill poultry on oc-
casion, much of the killing blamed on them has been perpetrated by rats, an occasional mink, and other
predators.
THE MARTEN
Although weasels can climb trees, they are primarily ground-dwelling predators. Fishers are agile tree
climbers and readily ascend after porcupines and squirrels, but they, too, are primarily terrestrial. The
smaller, lighter marten (Martes americana), however, is capable of exploiting the treetops more fully
than the fisher.
Martens are about two feet long, including the tail, and usually weigh either side of two pounds.
This light weight enables them to pursue the little red squirrel through the treetops on branches far too
small to bear the weight of the much larger fisher. Thus, although it spends the majority of its time on
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