On November 20, 1942, at Lake James,
Indiana, a weasel was seen by Grosjean (1942:443) attacking a "young
rabbit" in the throat of which the weasel had made five large holes
from which there was no obvious bleeding. Seton (1929 (4):798) recounts
that in 1910 at Base Lake, Michigan, F. C. Hicks saw a cottontail with
a weasel hanging to its legs rush to the cottage. When only four feet
from Hicks the weasel loosed its hold and the cottontail escaped under
the cottage. Burroughs (1939:253) on May 14, 1939, in Saginaw County,
Michigan, records that a young cottontail weighing between 200 and 250
grams was carried from the nest and killed. Burroughs was attracted
first by the "hissing scream" of the weasel, strode toward the sound,
flushed an adult cottontail, and discovered the empty nest from which
the weasel had taken the young cottontail.
Brush rabbit (_Sylvilagus bachmani_).--Vestal (1937:364) in Contra
Costa County, California, found a brush rabbit that appeared to have
been killed by a weasel.
Reptiles.--Grinnell, Dixon and Linsdale (1937:234) recount that in
July, 1889, in Wilson Canyon, near Pasadena, California, a weasel
killed a red racer by severing the backbone of the snake. In April,
1935, in Hidalgo County, Texas, a half grown bull snake (_Pituophis
sayi sayi_) was regurgitated by a young weasel. Russell (1930:504, 505)
has recorded finding in California a male weasel and a king snake
(Lampropeltis getulus boylii) three feet five inches long in mortal
combat. The weasel killed the snake but the weasel, incapacitated by
the conflict, was easily picked up by hand and was also saved as a
specimen.
Wild birds.--In the spring of 1940, in Washtenaw County, Michigan, one
bobwhite, of 10 bobwhite living on a 640 acre area, was killed by one
of four weasels that lived on the area. No other quail was killed
there. The one unfortunate bird was killed in the mouth of an abandoned
den where the quail roosted (Quick, 1944:76). A male weasel, subspecies
_M. f. effera_, was seen by Booth (1946:439) attempting to enter the
nesting hole of a pair of flickers, _Colaptes_. One song sparrow
(_Melospiza melodia_), and one slate-colored junco (_Junco hyemalis_)
were recorded by Quick (1944:76) as killed by weasel in Michigan.
Chicken (genus _Gallus_).--Quick (1944:78) writes that in one year
(1938-1939) weasels were reported to have killed 1.03 per cent of all
chickens in one township of Washtenaw County, Michigan, and that of the
total damage to all kinds of poultry, 59 per cent was done by weasels.
Weasels entered 19 per cent of the chicken coops on the study area.
Farmers killed 68 per cent of the weasels seen in barn yards. Spring
and summer were the seasons in which most of the weasels were observed
in barn yards. Internal evidence in Quick's (_op. cit._) account leads
me to suspect that some losses of poultry were charged to weasels when
_Rattus_ was actually responsible.
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