Feral animal

“ As the ferret, on getting into a hole after a rabbit, would probably fasten on and make a prey of the animal, it is usual, we believe, to attach it with a string, one end of which the warrener holds in his hand, or to cover its mouth with a muzzle of some sort before turning it loose. This, as a temporary measure, the ferret does not seem to mind. He goes with great zest after the rabbits, which being frightened out of their dens, are bagged in nets, or fall under the pellets of the sportsman. We should say, let our Australian friends import ferrets—if they can. ”

“ A ferret enters a burrow, discovers that there is a rat a little distance from him, is angered, grows excited at the prospect of a fight, and lashes his tail. But we have never observed a ferret to lash his tail when approaching a rabbit—comparatively a harmless prey. A cat gives the same storm-signal when annoyed, as when her fur is rubbed the wrong way, or when she is about to spring on a mouse or a rat, each capable of retaliation. ”

“ It is necessary to state, primarily, that there is no such thing as a wild ferret; it is domesticated in the same degree as a cat or a dog. The wild animal from which the ferret is bred is the weasel, just as the dog is originally of wolf extraction, and the cat of the same class as the tiger or lion. The ferret is also interbred with the different species of the musteline tribe, such as the mink, marten, polecat, and fitch. ”

“ When the ferrets are to be hunted with, feed them slightly, as feeding blunts their hunting capabilities and makes them worthless. After a good feed a ferret will sleep harder than any other domestic animal. Sometimes you will find a ferret so hard asleep that you can take him up, shake him, [Pg 13] and then put him down again without waking him. If you are inexperienced in the ways of the ferret, you will imagine you have a corpse on your hands. But the corpse will in a short time open its eyes, shake itself, wag its tail, and then trot around with the others. ”

“ It has a natural and instinctive propensity to burrowing, and where-ever the head can enter, the rest of the body can easily follow. Whenever the FERRET has secured the prey he is in pursuit of, he extracts the blood with extreme pleasure by suction, but is totally indifferent to the flesh; with the exception of the head of either RABBIT or RAT, the skull of which he directly destroys with his teeth, the better to enjoy an instantaneous and luxurious feast upon the brains. ”

“ Wherever a rat can go a ferret can go, because the latter's body is as [Pg 12] flexible as rubber, and it can squeeze itself up, draw itself out, and flatten its limbs into a likeness of a New England buckwheat cake, as if there wasn't a bone in its body. The weasels, and nearly all wild animals of this division, after killing the prey suck the blood, eat the brain, leave the rest of the body untouched, and then proceed to annihilate the next victim, repeating the operation. ”

“ Only one crafty, half tamed pet of mankind can cope with these. The ferret with his slim, snake-like body, his beady eyes, his prying nose, glides noiselessly into the deepest burrows and sends its denizens rushing from their dark haunts into sunshine and death. ”

“ The wild boar of India is said to have the bristles at the end of its tail arranged like the plumes of an arrow, whilst the European boar has a simple tuft; and it is a curious fact that many, but not all, of the feral pigs in Jamaica, derived from a Spanish stock, have a plumed tail. (3/29. Gosse 'Jamaica' page 386 with a quotation from Williamson 'Oriental Field Sports.' Also Col. Hamilton Smith in 'Naturalist Library' volume 9 page 94.) With respect to colour, feral pigs generally revert to that of the wild boar ”

“ Thus, with feral pigs, exposure to the weather will probably favour the growth of the bristles, as is known to be the case with the hair of other domesticated animals, and through correlation the tusks will tend to be redeveloped. But the reappearance of coloured longitudinal stripes on young feral pigs cannot be attributed to the direct action of external conditions. In this case, and in many others, we can only say that changed habits of life apparently have favoured a tendency, inherent or latent in the species, to return to the primitive state. ”

“ The human flea is a good deal more select in the choice of a host than some other species. The cat-flea (Ctenocephalus felis) has been found not only on the cat, but also on the dog, tiger, leopard, goat, horse, rat, hedgehog, kangaroo, deer, guinea-pig, rabbit, and on man. Many of these were specimens collected in zoological gardens. Although when hungry and confined in a test-tube the human flea will readily bite a rat or a guinea-pig, it has been found that human fleas kept with no other food-supply than rats and guinea-pigs soon die off. ”

“ Horses and kine are not dependent upon man for their existence; when left to themselves, in almost any part of the world, they run wild and flourish in what naturalists call a "feral" state. Thus we find feral horned cattle in the Falkland and in the Ladrone islands, as well as in the ancient Chillingham Park, in Northumberland; we find feral pigs in Jamaica; feral European dogs in La Plata; feral horses in Turkestan, and also in Mexico, descended from Spanish (p. 220) horses. ”

“ It is also used to drive rabbits from their burrows. Nets are set to catch the prey or they are shot as they rush out. But a muzzle is put on the ferret, for if it can kill the [57] rabbit and drink its blood it may stay for days in the hole. At other times a long string is tied to it, so that it can be pulled out. The ferret is sometimes used to chase and catch fowls. Once caught, a single sharp bite on the neck puts an end to the life of the fowl.
The Otter, One of Nature's Fishers
The ferret is a blood-sucker, and this makes it dangerous when it has once tasted blood. ”

“ These fleas, parasitical on so minute a mammal, are themselves minute—pretty sherry-coloured little creatures, not half so big as the dog's flea. It appears to be a habit of some wild fleas, when the animal they live on dies and grows cold, to place themselves on the surface of the fur and to hop well away when shaken. ”

“ The cocoons of the common human flea and the fowl flea become covered with dust and dirt. The period of pupal life seems varied, for I have had the fowl flea hatch out in ten days, and others in three weeks at the same time of year.
The adults are blood suckers and cause considerable irritation as well as acting as disease carriers, and in the Sarcopsyllidæ the females attach themselves permanently to their hosts, embedding themselves under the skin, where they become pregnant. Some kinds harbour the cystic stage of tapeworms, and the rat trypanosome passes certain stages in the rat flea. ”

“ But unfortunately we do not know the colour of the poultry which were turned out. Fowls have become feral on the Nicobar Islands (Blyth in the 'Indian Field,' 1858, p. 62) , and in the Ladrones (Anson's Voyage) . Those found in the Pellew Islands (Crawfurd) are believed to be feral; and lastly, it is asserted that they have become feral in New Zealand, but whether this is correct I know not.↑ Mr. Hewitt, in 'The Poultry Book,' by W. B. Tegetmeier, 1866, p. ”

“ As adults they live as internal blood feeders in various birds, reptiles and mammals, especially in the nasal and respiratory passages. The larval stage occurs in another host in an encysted condition; this host is usually an animal preyed upon by the species in which the sexual forms are found. The larvæ bore through the walls of the host’s stomach and enter liver and spleen or brain, where they encyst; here they grow until they assume almost the appearance of the adult. ”

“ No, people are misled by a ferret sending its teeth deep home in the flesh and making a sucking sound as it with difficulty breathes through its nose and the corners of its mouth. If you watch a ferret after it has killed a rat, it will, as soon as it is sure the rat is dead, begin chewing at the skin of the head or throat till it has made an entrance, and will then eat the flesh. ”

“ WEASEL. The Weasel is the smallest vermin of the ferret kind, and is a very noxious little animal, in many particulars resembling the stoat, last described, but is not capable, on account of its size, of doing half so much mischief, though they will destroy young hares, rabbits, and chickens, and, sucking out their blood, leave them behind ”

“ When fed with a fowl that had died, he seized the prey, and after sucking the blood and tearing it a little, he amused himself for hours in throwing it about and jumping after it in the manner that a Cat plays with a Mouse before it is quite dead. He never seemed to look on man or children as prey, but as companions, and the natives assert that when wild they live principally on poultry, birds, and the smaller kind of deer. ”

“ A hungry ferret around a house will go scenting around as hunting dogs do, to discover any trace or hiding-place of his natural prey. This in itself is enough to drive all the rats to Jericho and make them stay there as long as the ferrets are kept around, for the rodents have an acute bodily fear of these prowling detectives. A ferret's being bitten by a rat happens only in extreme cases, but sometimes in cellars and other places that are swarming with rats, ferrets that have first been put in have to contend with great odds, and come out with some bruises. ”

“ It is with their formidable claws, and still more formidable teeth, that they tear their prey to pieces.
None of the Feline tribe will eat vegetables, unless domesticated, even then but rarely; and in their wild state, unless pressed by hunger, they will only eat what they themselves have killed. They have an abhorrence of anything which is decomposed. The fur, with the exception of the Lion's mane, and that of the cat, is short, close, and soft ”

“ The rat itself is not so dire a foe to the farmer, as the less obtrusive, but equally mischievous Field-mouse. The ferret will drive the rats out of their holes, and if they have taken possession of a wheat-stack they can be ejected by depriving them of access to water. But the burrows of the Field-mouse are so small that a ferret cannot make its way [123] through them, and the nightly dew that falls on the stack affords an ample supply of water.
THE FIELD-MOUSE.
When the Field-mouse is deprived of the food which it loves best, it finds a subsistence among the trees. ”

“ The moment you see signs of distemper coming on feed the ferret as little as possible. Give it as little to eat as will just keep life in it, for in feeding the ferret you also feed the disease. When you have kept the food from it is the time to start curing if possible. ”

“ If even a dead one is presented to a young ferret, although he have never seen a rabbit before, he flies at and tears it with fury: but if it be alive, he seizes it by the nose or throat, and sucks its blood. When let into the burrows of rabbits, it is necessary to muzzle him, that he may not kill them in their holes, but only oblige them to run out, that they may be entrapped in the nets ”

“ I believe a ferret when in a hole uses a sense we don't possess—I mean the sense of touch with the long nose whiskers.
Some years ago the Field opened its pages to a long discussion on the subject of ferrets sucking the blood of their victims after they have killed them. Writers pretending to know all about it said they did do so. These men are to be pitied, not laughed at, for you see in the days of their youth "Rat-catching for the Use of Schools" was not written, and therefore they had not learnt better. A ferret no more sucks the blood of the things it kills than a dog does. ”

“ This reptile fearlessly attacks the fer-de-lance, and kills and eats him in spite of his venom, a perfectly justifiable if not gratifying instance of cannibalism, where a creature eats and relishes the body of one of its own species. The domestic cat is said also to be more than a match for the dreaded snake, and instinctively adopts a style of attack which, while protecting itself, finally closes the contest by the death of the fer-de-lance, which it seizes just back of the head at the spine, and does not let go until it has severed the head from the body ”

“ The ferret is of great spirit, strength, and courage, for its size; is an inveterate enemy to rabbits, rats, and poultry; in the pursuit of which, it will encounter any difficulty or danger, when once put upon the scent. The body is longer in proportion to its height, than almost any other animal, the weazel and stoat excepted. The colour {256} frequently varies, even in the young of the same dam and the same litter; some being black, with white under the belly; some are of a faint straw-colour yellow, and others of a light sandy red. The head is, in its formation, not unlike the mouse ”

“ In the evening it issues from its retreat, and begins its search after prey, which consists of various birds, quadrupeds, reptiles, fish, and even insects when it can find nothing better.
On account of its comparatively large dimensions, it is able to overcome even the full-grown hare and rabbit, while the lamb and the young fawn occasionally fall victims to its voracity. It seems never to chase any creature on the wing, but floats silently through the air, its soft and downy plumage deadening the sound of its progress, and suddenly drops on the unsuspecting prey while it is on the ground. ”

“ Now and again it happens that a ferret is killed accidentally while at work. And sometimes dead ferrets return to life, health, and strength in a way to put even cats to shame. We recall how a rat-hating keeper's wife, notorious for the quality of her right arm, was one day helping her husband to hunt rats in a wood-shed. On the ferret suddenly popping out his head from a wood-pile, the good woman lost her wits, and aimed a shrewd blow with her poker at the ferret's nose. ”