Taken from todays (071399) Seattle newspaper, the Seattle Post Intelligencer: Quote. Although many animals talk to one another with sizable vocabularies of sound and signal, some, the loners, don't. Weasels, minks, badgers, martens, fishers, ferrets (sic) and wolverines don't . They only get together briefly during mating season, and they're not much given to conversation then. Wildlifers say their languages are primitive. Unquote. Thus, if the ferret's language is primitive, is the ferret itself primitive? Does a primitive animal characteristically attack the young of other species? Could this include human young, such as infants? If the ferret is primitive and attacks the young of other species, is it at this time of its development, really domesticated? Yet? Does this imply that dogs who will travel in packs and who are not considered "primitive" like the ferret, and who also bite infants, do bite infants for reasons different from the reasons that motivate ferrets to bite infants? Do we naturally assume that the action of a ferret inflicting bites on a human infant is a really bad thing? Obviously we do. Is there the remote possibility that what we perceive as a "bite" is in reality, something else... something else that we don't yet understand? To the astute ferret behavior observer, do you see some types of ferret behavior that indicate the biting behavior of a ferret is actually a beneficial act directed toward the human infant. Some times we may be blind to what's really going on right in front of our eyes. I espouse a theory that the "bite" of a ferret on a human infant is not necessarily a bad thing, but is in reality an act of beneficance by the ferret directed at a creature that it is trying to protect or even covet. Do you not observe in ferrets their covetness in the "secret" caches they go to extreme efforts to maintain? What hint do you get here? Edward Lipinski, Ferret Endowment for Research, Rehabilitation, Education & Training Society, North West. Think about it. Edward Lipinski [Posted in FML issue 2742]