You have a weasel in your house, was said to persons with whom every thing turned out unfortunate and perverse. To meet a weasel was considered by the ancients as ominous; and portending some misfortune about to happen. Among huntsmen in this country, Erasmus tells us, it was in his time deemed an ill omen, if anyone named a weasel when they were setting off for their sport. Theophrastus, in his description of the character of a superstitious man, says; «If a weasel crosses the road he stops short, be his business never so pressing, and will not stir a foot till somebody else has gone before him and broke the omen; or till he himself has weakened the prodigy by throwing three stones».