A phrase in yesterday's posting by S Young <[log in to unmask]> caught my
eye "... few people who asked if he was a stoat or weasel".  I want to
figure out if I merely picked up on two different names for the same animal
or if they were indeed different.
 
I grew up in the U.K.  near dartmoor, although it has been many years since
I lived there.  (I left the area in the 1950s and emigrated in the mid
1970s.) We frequently ran across stoats along the hedgerows.  These were
generally whitish and, as I recall, looked to be about 1 to 3 lbs and look
like a pale skinny ferret.  There were also pine martens in the pine woods
although they were rarely found and usually not away from the woods.  We
also had a family of animals we referred to as weasels living in the roots
under an old elm at the bottom of the garden.  These were brown rather than
the whiteish color of the stoat.  They also seemed smaller, although not
much.  These animals were also fairly widespread in the area.  One thing
that makes me think these were different was that we kept chicken and the
run went right by the elm tree.  My grandfather was always very concerned if
a stoat was around that it would be after the eggs, the chickes or anything
else yet he never seemed to bother about the weasels.  (We never actually
lost any chickens except to an occasional fox - as far as we know.)
 
Thing is, I had always believed them to be different kinds of animals.
However, it is very possible knowing the dialect in that area that these
were just two different terms for the same animal.  Are any of you UK
readers from Devon or familiar with the local fauna and can you shed any
light on this?
 
"Thur be weezuls under the elum ;)"
[Posted in FML issue 1878]