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Life as we usually see it is the result of a complex system of checks and counter-checks. The carnivorous animals are a check on the herbivorous; the hawks and owls are a check on the birds and fowls; the cats and weasels are a check on the small rodents, which are very prolific. The different species of plants and trees are a check upon one another.
For the long list of dead rats and mice, pocket gophers, skunks, and weasels to his credit, we think well of him, and wish his prosperity. For the song-birds, ruffed grouse, quail, other game birds, domestic poultry, squirrels, chipmunks and hares that he kills, we hate him, and would cheerfully wring his neck, wearing gauntlets. He does an unusual amount of good, and a terrible amount of harm.
Weasels did not often come up to the barn, and men made so much noise when they were around that any wide-awake Mouse could easily keep out of their way. With the Cat it was different.
Dear old Badger! Nobody interferes with HIM. They'd better not, he added significantly. 'Why, who SHOULD interfere with him? asked the Mole. 'Well, of course there are others, explained the Rat in a hesitating sort of way. 'Weasels and stoats and foxes and so on.
He had, for instance, imported fifty ferrets and weasels of both sexes and turned them loose in pairs, in rabbit-earths situated in different outlying portions of his land.
Then Uncle Wiggily felt very badly, indeed, for he knew that a weasel is the worst animal a rabbit can have after him. Weasels are very fond of rabbits. They love them so much they want to eat them, and Uncle Wiggily did not want to be eaten, even by Mr. Pop-Goes. "Oh, dear!" he thought. "What can I do to scare away the bad fox and Mr. Pop-Goes, the weasel? Oh, dear!"
I was sitting very still, some distance to one side, and he did not see me. Near old Noel's deadfall he paused an instant with raised head, in the curious snake-like attitude that all the weasels take when watching. Then he glided round the end of the trap, and disappeared down the portage. When he was gone I stole out to examine his tracks.
One of them was "disfigured with a great skin, his head hung around with little skins of weasels and other vermin, with a crownlet of feathers on his head, painted as ugly as the devil." So fat they fed him that he much doubted they intended to sacrifice him to the Quiyoughquosicke, which is a superior power they worship: a more uglier thing cannot be described.
The gosling houses may be built either above or below ground, but never more than twenty should be housed together and care must be taken lest the floor be damp and that they are bedded on chaff or some thing of that kind, and that the house is so constructed as to keep out weasels and other beasts which prey on goslings.
"But there is nothing to hurt us, my dear Nimble no racoons, nor foxes, nor hawks, nor owls, nor weasels; if I see any hungry-looking birds or beasts, I have a safe place to run to, and never need be hungry!" "I would not lead a life like that, for the world," said Nimble.
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