The weasel is common in many parts of the United States as well as in Europe. In some regions you can scarcely take a walk along the roads or through the fields without catching sight of it. Very likely it will poke its head out of a hole in the bank at the side of the road, and watch you in the most inquisitive manner as you go past. Or you may notice it slipping in and out of the herbage at the foot of a hedge, as it searches for the small creatures on which it feeds. But very often it will leave the hedge, and follow a mole along its burrow. Or it will make its way to a wheatstack, and pursue the mice through their "runs." And it is very fond of going out bird's-nesting, and robbing the nests of the eggs or little ones which they contain. But the weasel is not always successful when he sets out on one of these expeditions. While coming down Helvellyn, a mountain in England, a writer witnessed a strange little scene. "Hearing a loud chattering," he says, "I looked up, and saw just above me a pair of stonechats and a weasel. Evidently the weasel had come too near the nest of the birds, and they were trying to entice him away. And this is how they managed it. First the cock bird sat down on a stone about a yard in front of the weasel, and began to flap his wings, and to chatter and scream. The weasel immediately darted at him, and the bird flew away. Next the hen bird sat down on another stone a yard farther on, and began to flap her wings and to chatter and scream. Then the weasel darted at her, and _she_ flew away. As soon as she had gone the cock came back, sat on a third stone, and played the same trick again. And so the two birds went on over and over again, till they got the weasel far up the mountain side, quite two hundred yards from the nest, when they quietly left him and flew away together.
"Wasn't it clever of them? And the odd thing was that the weasel never realized that he was being taken in, but evidently thought he was going to catch one of the birds every time that he darted at them."
When fully grown the European weasel is from eight to ten inches long, about one-fourth of that length being occupied by the tail. The fur of the upper parts of the body is brownish red in color, while that of the throat and lower surface is white.