Cottontail (genus _Sylvilagus_).--Hamilton (1933:33), as noted above, found remains of cottontail in the digestive tracts of ermine that had been trapped for fur in winter. Possibly these remains were bait that had been placed at traps. Snowshoe rabbit (_Lepus americanus_).--Morse (1939:210) in a study of predation on hares and grouse in the period of notable decimation of these two game species in 1935-1936 in the Cloquet Valley State Forest, in St. Louis County, Minnesota, found that "weasel predation on hares appeared to be of very low incidence or altogether lacking." Wild birds (Class Aves).--Aldous and Manweiler (1942), as noted above, found that the remains of birds constituted five per cent by volume of the food of the ermine in winter in Minnesota. Chicken (genus _Gallus_).--Criddle and Criddle (1925:145), who published relatively extensive data on the three species of weasels of Manitoba, write that: "We have no record of Bonaparte's weasel killing poultry, and we doubt whether it ever does so." However, Soper (1919:46) investigated the excited cackling of a hen brooding chicks at night and found a solitary ermine that had killed three chicks and that had the remainder under very active scrutiny. Leopard frog (_Rana pipiens_).--One frog was found in a male ermine on November 20, 1931, in New York by Hamilton (1933:300). Fish (Class Pisces).--Aldous and Manweiler (1942) found fragments of a small fish in one of 60 stomachs of ermine from Minnesota. Earthworm (Phylum Annelida).--Osgood (1936:64), presumably at Rutland, Vermont, observed a pair of weasels from 2:15 P.M. to 5:00 P.M., in a barn and saw the female in that time make many trips for food for her young. Only earthworms were brought. Fifty traps in an adjacent, swampy field caught only one bull frog and no mice indicating that mice had been eliminated from the foraging territory of the ermine. In handling food, Dice (1921:22) noted that the Alaskan ermine did not use the feet but only the mouth. Reproduction Litters of 4, 4, 7, 7, and 8, yielding an average of 6 young per litter have been recorded from the northeastern United States by Hamilton (1933:327). He (_op. cit._:321-325) described animals one day old from New York State as being flesh-colored, having the long neck of the adult and a fine growth of white hair two millimeters in length, on the dorsal surface of the neck, that foreshadows the mane or pompadour that is prominent from the 14th to the 21st day of life. Six animals, when one day old averaged 1.7 grams in weight, which was three per cent of the weight of an adult female and one and one half per cent of the weight of an adult male. At two weeks of age the heavy brown mane stood out in marked contrast to the rest of the scantily, white-furred animal. The eyes opened on the thirty-fifth day of life. [Illustration: FIG. 24. _Mustela erminea richardsonii_, adult female, Catalogue Number 14866, U. S. Nat. Mus., Fort Chimo, Ungava. × 1/2.