some distance from the houses, always choosing low grounds, about mills and streams, hiding themselves among the bushes, to catch the birds; they sometimes take up their abodes in old willows, where the females bring forth their young, for which she prepares a bed of grass, straw, and leaves; she litters in the spring, and it generally consists of from three to five. They are brought forth with their eyes closed but they very soon acquire growth and strength sufficient to follow the mother to the chace. They attack adders, water-rats, moles, field mice, &c. and traversing the meadows devour quails and their eggs. They have not a regular walk, but bound forward by unequal and precipitate leaps; when inclined to mount a tree they make a spring, by which they are elevated several feet at once; and thus they also act when they attempt to seize a bird. These animals have also a very strong and disagreeable smell, which is much worse in summer than winter, and when pursued or irritated they infect the air to a great distance. They always move with all possible silence, and never exert their voices but when they are hurt, of which the sound is rough, and very expressive of anger. As their own odour is very bad they seem to feel no inconvenience from any foreign stench. A peasant in my neighbourhood took three new-littered weasels out of the carcass of a wolf, which had been suspended by its hind legs from a branch of a tree; for though the wolf was almost rotten, the female weasel had brought grass and leaves, and made a bed for her young in the thorax of this putrid carcass. SUPPLEMENT. The Comtesse Noyan declares in a letter which she favoured me with, that I have done great injustice to the character of the weasel, in saying that it is not to be tamed, since she had reared one who would lick her hand when she gave it food, and was as fond and familiar as a dog or squirrel. And N. G. de Mornas assures me that he trained one who would follow him about; and he says that they are to be tamed by frequent stroking them on their backs, and beating them when they offer to bite. THE ERMINE. The weasel with a black tail is called the Ermine or Roselet (_fig. 71._) the ermine when it is white, and the roselet when it is red or yellowish. Though not so numerous as the common weasel, yet many of them are found in ancient forests, and sometimes during winter in the neighbourhood of woods. They are easy to be distinguished at all times, as the end of their tails are always black, and the extremities of their ears and feet white.