Strategic Weasel | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 5, 1882

Strategic Weasel.

The remarkable sagacity of the weasel was well illustrated the other day by an incident which actually occurred in the suburbs of Santa Barbara. A gentleman's barn was infested by rats and he was greatly annoyed by their depredations. They have been gradually disappearing, however, during the past few weeks. The gentleman finally discovered the cause of their probable disappearance in a very wide-awake weasel, which was engaged at the time in a vigorous combat with an unusually large-sized rat. The latter proved too much for his adversary and finally chased his weaselship out of the barn. A few mornings later the gentleman again found the same animals engaged in a similar battle. The weasel at last ran away as before, and the rat followed in hot pursuit. This time, however, the weasel ran into a hole it had burrowed through a pile of hardened compost.

This hole was quite large at the entrance, but the outlet was barely large enough to admit the passage of the weasel's body. The weasel darted into the hole, with the rat at its heels. A moment later the weasel emerged from the other side, ran quickly around the compost pile and entered the hole, this time in the enemy's rear. The gentleman, interested in the proceedings, watched the place some time, and found the weasel only came out. Digging into the compost, he found the rat quite dead and partly eaten. The weasel had arranged the trap so that the rat could enter, but becoming closely wedged in the narrow portion of the hole, could be attacked at a disadvantage, and easily killed.—Santa Barbara Press.