CHAPTER IX.

_Weasels, and How to Destroy Them._

Now, as a field-mouse destroyer we have come to the king of them all. I have found as high as twenty-seven adult field mice stored in a weasel’s winter home. Yet of all the four-legged enemies our birds have, I know of none to compare with the weasel. But if I were to ask the experienced hunters of America if they know the weasel all would be disgusted, because the weasel is so common throughout this country. I was once in that class myself; I thought I knew all there was to be known about them. I had shot them out of the tops of trees, and dug them out of the ground; I had called them into the tile shed and even into the engine room; I had sat here in the woods and called them so they would come up and smell of the ends of my fingers; I had seen dozens of the little rascals in Northern Ontario when I had been hunting moose, and had sat down and called them across the creek to me. Yes, I thought I was well acquainted with them.

Now, when I come to think of it I am always reminded of a middle-aged, corpulent gentleman who once came to our tile yard. After he had his wagon loaded he climbed down over the wheel; as he struck the earth, he took both hands and pulled his loose trousers up over the dome of his constitution; then pushing his right hand down into his pants pocket he pulled it out full of what looked to be tobacco, Canada thistles and milk-weed chaff; after pouring this from one hand to the other and blowing the coarse gravel out, he tipped his mouth on top of his face, and raising his hand above, he let this junk roll into the cavity, just like throwing garbage into a skunk-hole. Then he turned and said, “Mr. Miner, do you know Mr. ——?” calling his neighbor by name. “Yes,” I replied, “I am well acquainted with him.” “Well,” he said, as he raised one hand and came towards me, “that is just where you are mistaken. Now, Mr. Miner, you think you know him, but you don’t.” Then raising both hands, he continued, “Now let me tell you who he is, Mr. Miner. He is a limb of the devil,” and he continued coming closer and going from bad to worse, saying nasty, unclean things about his neighbor until this combination in his mouth was all churned into a dirty froth, with the over-splush slopping out the corners and running down his chin like tar boiling out of a hotbox on a manure-spreader. So I excused myself: The engine in the factory needed my attention.

So now, whenever I think of this man’s conversation, I always think of the weasel, as I was sure I knew him. To prove I didn’t, the third year I raised pheasants, these innocent-looking little vermin took over two-thirds of what were hatched. You talk about worms bothering the farmers’ crops; they weren’t in it. Really, these weasels bothered me more than the heavy mortgage that held my buildings down and took care of my insurance policy.

I watched them day and night. I shut the birds in so tight that they smothered in their pens, and yet the weasels got them. I sat on the fence and blew several into fragments with a load of shot, and would go to the house quite light-hearted; next morning likely I would find ten or fifteen more dead pheasants. I put traps everywhere and caught as many pheasants as weasels. I used all kinds of bait, and failed. I tried to call them, but no, no. I took young, live birds and put them in a small mesh wire cage and set traps on the outside, but nothing doing. At last I brought the pheasants near the house and all hands watched them, and even then we lost some. I studied weasels night and day, but I was beaten. Where did they come from?

For there were weasels in the door-yard, Weasels in the barn, There were weasels in the hen-house, Weasels all over the farm; There were weasels in the engine-room, Weasels in the shed, And when I went to sleep at night There were weasels in my head.

I could see weasels on the bare ground, Weasels in the weeds; I could see weasels in the pheasant-coops Doing their bloody deeds; I could see weasels coming across the road; I could see weasels in the lane; And in the morning when I awoke I had weasels on the brain.

For in spite of all my determined efforts the weasels were increasing by leaps and bounds. Not that they were getting more numerous throughout the whole country, but they were simply attracted here by the pheasants, and it was no use, as there would be more and more next season. I thought I would have to give in, beaten. But Mr. Weasel had run up against a determined fellow to kill, and I was dying hard; and while it is not my intention to preach a sermon, yet I want to tell you what happened.

A few years previous to this, a dear little boy whom God lent to me for a short time climbed upon my lap, and putting his little arms around my neck with his sweet face looking into mine, pleaded with me to go to Sunday school with him and mamma. I unclasped his little arms one at a time, and told him to get down and go along as it was all right; but he insisted, stating it looked lonesome to leave me at home all alone. His sincere request took such a hold on me that I could not resist, and the very next Sunday found him and his father, hand in hand, on their way to the little old red schoolhouse. And although against my will, as I had no schooling, but finally to my delight, in about three months I was teaching a class of boys. They, of course, did the reading, but I was general manager and furnished the brute force if required. It took us several Sundays to get acquainted, and when we read the 26th verse of first Genesis we were very much encouraged to know that we were given “Dominion over all.” Now, dear reader, lest I forget I want you to know His promise in this verse is the foundation of a great percentage of my success in taming and controlling these so-called wild creatures during the last twenty years. Although the weasel had me beaten, yet my mind kept drifting back on His words, “Let man have dominion over all.”

Eventually I thought, “Why did the weasel take the remnants of pheasants over to the rail pile, nearly one hundred yards away?” Yes, it was plain enough he was over there and knew that hiding place before he got the birds. Well then, if I had had a trap over there I would have headed him off. So I would reverse my plans, and instead of destroying their homes I would build them some as perfect as I knew how. So with bright prospects and a light heart I went at it again and built three weasels’ houses as follows:

For each one I took four pieces of two-by-four scantling, three feet long, laid them down on the level ground, pointing these scantling east, west, north and south, but leaving them about six inches apart in the centre—just room enough to set a No. 1 or 1½ jump trap. Then I covered the top with old lumber and nailed it fast, leaving a hole in the centre about a foot square, right over the trap, which I covered with a loose board. See illustration.

Now I had a weasel house, complete, six or seven feet square, the cover just two inches from the ground, with all the runs leading to the trap like the spokes lead to the hub.

I placed these three platforms around in the most likely places, two in the enclosure and one on the outside. I then threw pieces of stumps, rails, or anything I could find, around to make a complete weasel harbor. Then I scratched a hole out about an inch deep in the centre and put in a handful of soft hen feathers, and placed a trap down on them, setting the trigger of the trap very light. Then I dropped two or three light feathers on top, making it appear like a perfect mouse-nest. I now put the loose board cover over. I set the traps early in the spring, but weasels did not come until I put the pheasants out. Then the real fun began, for I caught three in one trap in one day; this was in the trap on the outside of the enclosure. To prove to your satisfaction that my weasel story is not exaggerated, I caught fifty-seven weasels the first summer, and they only got four pheasants; for three seasons in succession I got over fifty weasels each year. But now they are so nearly exterminated that we only keep one weasel platform, as we call them, and catch two or three weasels a year.

Please let me ask you to excuse me for writing so much to say a little, but I want you to understand just how to head off this pest, as one weasel will kill as high as twenty or thirty young fowl in one night, and to know how to catch him the night before, instead of the morning after, is worth the price of this book a good many times a year if you have had a taste of my experience. And the great beauty of it is you cannot help yourself without helping your neighbor. Previous to my exterminating over ninety per cent. of the weasels in this neighborhood, some of my neighbors were almost discouraged trying to raise young turkeys, and, in fact, any domestic fowl, but to-day these complaints seem to be a thing of the past and the weasel annoyance, ancient history.