LEAST WEASELS, CANE WEASELS, WHITNICKS, AND DANDY DOGS - DEMYSTIFYING MUSTELIDS IS THE NAME OF THE GAME!

 

Exquisite 19^th-Century colour-tinted engraving depicting a pair of Mustela nivalis, the common weasel, or – to avoid being labelled by pedants as nomenclaturally negligent – the least weasel (public domain)

Back in the mid-1960s, when I was just a small child, I was bought an alphabetically-arranged weekly partwork entitled Purnell's Encyclopaedia of Animal Life that ran for 96 weeks and which when complete yielded six hefty and exceedingly comprehensive full-colour volumes. Edited by famous British zoologists Drs Maurice and Robert Burton, these red-bound fact-filled, photo-brimming tomes totally enthralled me, and I read them over and over again. Moreover, I still own them today and they remain an extremely useful, informative source of reference. Indeed, it is perfectly true to say that this wonderful publication quite simply transformed my life as a budding zoologist, unveiling a vast array of extraordinary animals that were totally new to me. Crucially, it was also the very first zoological publication owned by me that included the taxonomic binomial names of the animals documented in its countless pages. (These binomial names, which trace their origin back to Linnaeus's revolutionary system of wildlife classification back in the 1700s, are commonly referred to colloquially as 'Latin names', even though many are derived from Greek rather than Latin.) As a result, I have been fascinated with zoological nomenclature and taxonomy ever since.

And so it was that while others of my age were memorizing football teams and car makes/models, I was enthusiastically learning the binomial names of as many animals as my besieged brain cells could accommodate, and then some, and I have continued to do so ever since. However, just like every other aspect of science, zoological nomenclature and taxonomy are ever changing, ever expanding, ever modifying as new information concerning the evolutionary origins and relationships of species and other taxa continues to emerge. Consequently, it should come as no surprise that many of the binomials and classifications of animals that I diligently learned six decades ago have since changed or transformed dramatically – but also sometimes confusingly – meaning that I am perpetually engaged in taxonomic catch-up, often having to abandon binomials that I've fondly recollected for countless years in favour of new, unfamiliar ones.

Sadly, these include the very first binomial that I ever learned, from my trusty Purnell's Encyclopaedia.  It was Alopex lagopus, the Arctic fox, which has stayed with me ever since, never forgotten, a faithful reminder of where my enduring passion for such nomenclature began. And then, to my horror, some wretched wrecker of childhood memories in taxonomist form came along (albeit a fair few years ago now), and decided that the Arctic fox did not warrant its own genus, Alopex, distinct from Vulpes, which houses the true foxes, and should therefore be subsumed into their genus. Consequently, to my horror, the first binomial that I had ever leant was no more! Suddenly, "Alopex lagopus the Arctic fox" – the much-loved taxonomic mantra that had chanted happily away to itself in the backrooms of my memory for decades – had been rendered obsolete, jettisoned to nomenclatural obscurity as nothing more from now on than a synonym of Vulpes lagopus. The dread deed was done, and it is now this latter binomial that is recognized as the Arctic fox's official one – but although I outwardly accept it and grudgingly use it when writing about this species, inside my mind the Arctic fox is and always will be Alopex lagopus. So be it, forever and ever, amen.

 

Resplendent in its all-white winter coat, the Arctic fox – forever Alopex lagopus to me! (public domain)

I mentioned earlier here that sometimes the changing of taxonomic names and classifications can be a source of confusion, which is where this ShukerNature blog article's mustelid theme now kicks in and is the reason for my prefacing it with an explanation of how and why binomials have always interested me.

Back when I was a child, most of the wildlife books that I owned readily differentiated three very small species within the genus Mustela. These were referred to as the common weasel (or simply as the weasel) M. nivalis (with a head-and-body length of 5-10 in and a tail length of 0.5-3.5 in, native to much of continental Europe as well as Great Britain but not Ireland), the pygmy weasel M. pygmaea (given as being smaller than M. nivalis, and native to Fareastern Russia, Siberia, and Mongolia), and the least weasel M. rixosa (given as being even smaller than M. pygmaea, native to Canada and parts of the northern USA, and listed back then in the Guinness Book of Records as not only the world's smallest species of mustelid but also its smallest species of any type of carnivoran, i.e. belonging to the taxonomic order Carnivora). So far, so simple – but then it all changed…

 

Size comparison of Mustela nivalis with the European hare Lepus europaeus and a human hand (public domain)

Many years later, I started noticing in books and articles that M. nivalis was now being referred to as the least weasel and being claimed to be the world's smallest mustelid and carnivoran. So what had happened to M. rixosa (and also M. pygmaea, for that matter)? This name-change was especially curious, given that the least weasel M. rixosa that I had grown up reading about was a wholly New World species whereas M. nivalis was a wholly Old World one. To quote the website NatureServe Explorer's 'Mustela nivalis Least Weasel' page as of today, 8 May 2021 (click here to access the full page):

The North American population sometimes is treated as a separate species, Mustela rixosa. Confusion has existed for a long time regarding the taxonomic status of this species [M. nivalis] and its subspecies, particularly in Europe (see Sheffield and King 1994; Wozencraft, in Wilson and Reeder 2005).

How very true! Further research has revealed to me that generally, but by no means universally, taxonomists nowadays deem what used to be called the least weasel (i.e. the New World species M. rixosa) to be merely a subspecies of what used to be called the common weasel (or weasel) M. nivalis, thus renaming it M. n. rixosa, which is fair enough. However, they have also elected (for reasons that entirely escape me) to utilise the latter subspecies' original common name as the name for the entire species.

In other words, no longer is M. nivalis called the common weasel or weasel. Instead, it is now called the least weasel – which to my mind is a totally unnecessary and highly confusing name-change, especially for those like myself who have long known the least weasel to be the name of the New World's tiniest of tiny mustelids, but which is nowadays called Bangs' least weasel instead.

 

In summer and (white) winter coat, North America's least weasel M. (n.) rixosa (public domain)

Moreover, the pygmy weasel M. pygmaea has been demoted to a subspecies of M. nivalis too. As a result, it has been renamed M. n. pygmaea, and is now called the Siberian least weasel instead of the pygmy weasel.

So instead of having a naming system for this trio of mustelids that was not only readily memorable by being succinct but also instantly conveyed useful information concerning them – 'common weasel', 'pygmy weasel', and 'least weasel' clearly revealing the sizes of these three forms relative to each other, self-evidently reducing in size from 'common' through 'pygmy' to 'least' – we now have one that is harder to remember and conveys no information whatsoever concerning their relative sizes. After all, how can we tell which is the biggest, the medium-sized, and the smallest from the names 'least weasel', 'Siberian least weasel', and 'Bangs' least weasel'? And there was I, thinking that the purpose of zoological nomenclature and taxonomy is to simplify animal classification and recognition!

[To make matters even more bewildering: by the 1970s, some authors had begun lumping together what until then had still been M. pygmaea from the Old World and M. rixosa from the New World, thereby creating what was now a circumpolar species. Very confusingly, however, instead of being given a new common name and a new taxonomic name (which would have made much more sense), this composite circumpolar species became referred by its New World component's names, i.e. as the least weasel M. rixosa. Also claimed as a separate species back then was the dwarf weasel M. minuta, smaller than the common weasel and native to parts of continental Europe but not the British Isles… but enough of taxonomic turmoil, time to move on, I think!]

Anyway, if even the scientific naming of creatures is far from immune to introducing confusion where only clarity should reign, how much more so when we turn our attention to local, non-scientific names, as exemplified once again by some ostensibly mystifying monikers of the mustelid variety.

 

Mustela nivalis at the British Wildlife Centre, Surrey, England (© Kevin Law/Wikipedia – CC BY-SA 2.0 licence)

Take, for instance, the so-called cane weasel. Also known variously as the miniver, mouse hound, or mousehunt, this cryptic carnivoran was once firmly believed in by many rural folk from southern England, who claimed that it was a discrete, second species of native weasel, one that was even smaller than M. nivalis. Gamekeepers vehemently attested to the reality of this minuscule mustelid, yet no specimens were ever submitted to museums or other scientific establishments for formal examination, and eventually this curious notion of a second British weasel species simply faded away. In a short but succinct 'Nature Note' article in London's Daily Telegraph newspaper for 6 January 1996, previously-mentioned British zoologist Dr Robert Burton offered three suggestions for the erstwhile belief in the cane weasel.

Firstly: M. nivalis is a noticeably variable species in terms of size, which is what had influenced the former taxonomic delineation of M. pygmaea and M. rixosa as separate species in the first place. Moreover, adult female specimens of M. nivalis can often be considerably smaller than adult males. Consequently, it would be easy for zoologically-untrained observers to spy smaller than average female specimens and wrongly assume that they must constitute a very diminutive separate species in their own right.

Secondly: M. nivalis produces two litters in a year. Consequently, it is possible that the so-called cane weasels are actually the tiny offspring of the first litter, which breed before they are full grown in size.

Thirdly: alternatively, it may be that the offspring of late-produced second litters of M. nivalis pass the winter at less than adult size and it is these overwintering under-sized specimens that have given rise to the cane weasel notion among rural observers.

 

Painting of a stoat Mustela erminea in its white ermine winter coat with two least weasels close by, readily revealing how much larger is the stoat – in Gerald Edwin Hamilton Barrett-Hamilton's book A History of British Mammals, Vol 5, 1910 (public domain)

Another English belief in a distinct, smaller than normal weasel species originates in the southwestern county of Cornwall, and concerns the so-called whitnick. According to Cornish language and dialect sources that I have consulted, generally speaking 'whitnick' is simply a local name for M. nivalis. However, on 31 March 1964, a short letter written by Cornish reader S.M. Lanyon that was published in the then-weekly, now long-defunct British magazine Animals enquired whether the whitnick may be something much more interesting and special.

In his letter, Lanyon, based in St Ives, Cornwall, stated that the whitnick is claimed locally to be a cross between a weasel and a stoat, to be plentiful around there, and to have always been so. But was such a creature real, or just a Cornish story, Lanyon wondered. Back then, the editor of Animals was none other than the highly-acclaimed naturalist and pioneering wildlife film maker Armand Denis, who responded personally to Lanyon's letter, Denis's reply being published directly underneath it.

Like Burton would mention many years later in his own above-noted Daily Telegraph article, Denis referred first of all to the noticeable size disparity between the two sexes in M. nivalis (i.e. females being smaller than males). He then speculated that whereas 'cane weasel' appeared to be a special name given to the smaller, female sex of M. nivalis in Kent and Sussex, in Cornwall it was the larger, male sex of this same species that had been given a special name – whitnick – because the possibility that this cryptic creature was genuinely a hybrid of M. nivalis and the much bigger M. erminea seemed highly unlikely. And indeed, I have never uncovered any information concerning verified crossbreeds of these two species, despite having searched diligently during the many years that have passed since I first read Lanyon's letter and Denis's reply to it.

 

Atmospheric colour-tinted 19^th-Century engraving of Herne the Hunter with two of his hounds (public domain)

Finally: many years ago once again, I discovered this last snippet of unexpected information relating to weasels and weasel nomenclature in an equally unexpected source. Namely, Africa-based naturalist Peter Turnbull-Kemp's book The Leopard (1967), which I consulted when researching my own, very first book, Mystery Cats of the World (1989) – now republished in expanded, updated form as Mystery Cats of the World Revisited (2020). Here is the snippet in question, in which Turnbull-Kemp recalled an interesting memory from his childhood spent in England:

I myself can remember being warned as a boy against the risks in meeting supposed troops or packs of "bloodthirsty" weasels – known in my part of England by the rather attractive name of Dandy-hounds. Such "dangerous packs were only in evidence in times of extremely hard weather, and rare parties of weasels did in fact appear on rare occasions under such conditions. Needless to say, they were sometimes bold from hunger and possibly with curiosity, but utterly harmless.

I had previously been familiar with the longer term 'devil's dandy hounds', which is one of several referring to the supernatural, spectral hell hounds that according to various stories of British folklore accompany either the devil or the horned hunter Herne during the Wild Hunt. However, I had not previously encountered it in relation to weasels – nor indeed for that matter had I hitherto known about the notion of weasels forming hunting packs during harsh conditions.

Despite Turnbull-Kemp's reassurance that these musteline dandy hounds were totally harmless to humans, however, I subsequently read elsewhere a lurid account of a farm labourer that had allegedly been set upon one snowy, winter's evening by a savage swarm of these mini-mustelids, which he frantically warded off using his cart whip. Also of note is a supposed true-life story graphically entitled 'Weasels Ripped My Flesh!', published in the September 1956 issue of Man's Life (a long-since-defunct American men's action/adventure magazine), and the subject of that issue's eye-popping full-colour front cover painting by Wil Hulsey. However, although presented as the first-hand account of a man who had been attacked by a ferocious weasel pack after lying in wait to discover what had killed 90 ducks in just two nights at his Connecticut farm, and credited to a Mike Kamens, this was actually pulp fiction written under a pseudonym.

 

The fantastic front cover illustration by Wil Hulsey of the story 'Weasels Ripped My Flesh!' by Mike Kamens, from Man's Life, September 1956 (© Wil Hulsey/Mike Kamens/Man's Life/Crestwood Publishing Co – reproduced on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Happily, investigations of mine into the reality or otherwise of dandy hound packs duly revealed that such claims are baseless, nothing more than yet another example of weasel-inspired whimsy. In fact, M. nivalis is a very active but solitary hunter, although sometimes an adult female will be encountered chaperoning her offspring on training forays (the adult male playing no part in their rearing or training). Sadly, Turnbull-Kemp offered no sources or additional information to substantiate his claim that rare parties of weasels do occur occasionally during times of extremely hard weather.

Incidentally, the fact that weasels apparently do not hunt in packs at any time has not stopped the creation of several totally superfluous – and very silly-sounding – collective terms for this species (what is it with the bizarre compulsion to create inane collective terms for animals, even ones that by nature are solitary – other than to bamboozle ardent quizzers??). These include not only a pack but also a gang, a boogie, and even a confusion of weasels, the last-mentioned example being particularly apt, or ironic, given the circumstances!

In summary: intriguing and memorable though they may be, the multi-named Kentish cane weasel (aka miniver aka mouse hound aka mousehunt), the crossbred Cornish whitnick, and the dread droves of dandy hounds must all be relegated to the intangible realms of England's fascinating but entirely folkloric fauna.

 

Weasels Ripped My Flesh! – edited by Robert Deis with Josh Alan Friedman and Wyatt Doyle (© Robert Deis, Josh Alan Friedman & Wyatt Doyle/New Texture – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

If you would like to learn more about the legendary 'Weasels Ripped My Flesh!' story and its fascinating link to equally celebrated music megastar Frank Zappa, please click here to read an article by my longstanding Facebook friend Bob Deis, present on his Menspulpmags website. Bob has also included a reproduction of the original published version of it in his wonderful compilation of 22 classic stories from American men's pulp magazines, entitled – what else? – Weasels Ripped My Flesh!

Also, make sure that you check out Bob's fascinating compilation of cryptozoology-themed stories and reports from American men's pulp magazines – Cryptozoology Anthology: Strange and Mysterious Creatures in Men's Adventure Magazines.

 

Cryptozoology Anthology – edited by Robert Deis, David Coleman, and Wyatt Doyle (© Robert Deis, David Coleman & Wyatt Doyle/New Texture – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

 

MY REVIEW OF: WHERE THE LION TROD, BY C.H. KEELING

The Bartlett Society's republished edition of Clinton Keeling's book Where the Lion Trod (photograph © The Bartlett Society – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

I first became friends with Clinton Harry Keeling (C.H. Keeling was how he styled himself when authoring publications) back in the 1990s, when I subscribed to his self-published magazine Mainly About Animals – a fascinating pot-pourri of unusual but always memorable wildlife subjects and trivia of the kind that for the most part had lately and tragically fallen between the cracks of mainstream zoological literature. Back in the 19^th century, conversely, much data of this eclectic yet also esoteric nature resided in such famous publications as the venerable, long-vanished periodical entitled The Zoologist. Now, thanks to Clinton's magazine, they could once again thrive in a veritable menagerie of natural history miscellanea, its contents written by Clinton and also a host of enthusiastic contributors.

'Menagerie' is a very apposite word to use here, because one of the most outstanding features of both Clinton and his periodical was the extraordinary wealth of knowledge that this man and his magazine encapsulated regarding the history of British zoos, animal parks, menageries, and travelling sideshows that exhibited animals down through the centuries. A self-taught zoologist  born in 1932 who went on to run his own zoological park, establish a highly successful and exceedingly popular wildlife education service lecturing in schools and generally accompanied by various of his exotic animals, Clinton spent a lifetime acquiring this specialized knowledge and enthusiastically disseminated it via innumerable articles published in countless periodicals, both scientific and popular-format.

Sharing his love for this selfsame subject, Clinton and I soon began corresponding on all manner of related themes, especially concerning the possible identity of certain mysterious creatures that had been displayed in such exhibitions at one time or another – and during our correspondence I learned that over the course of time he had self-published an extensive series of books compiling and preserving for future generations this priceless historical material that might otherwise be lost. Having said that, it may indeed have been preserved, but actually accessing it was another matter entirely, inasmuch as these uniquely precious books proved to be just as elusive as some of the controversial beasts documented within them. Consisting of nine volumes in all, among aficionados they were – and still are – fondly referred to as Clinton's Where the… books, on account of their titles' shared tag words. And so, beginning in 1984, they consisted of Where the Lion Trod, Where the Crane Danced (published in 1985), Where the Zebu Grazed (1989), Where the Elephant Walked (1991), Where the Macaw Preened (1993), Where the Penguin Plunged (1995), Where the Leopard Lazed (1999), Where the Peacock Screamed (2002), and Where the Camel Strode (2003 – just four years before Clinton passed away).

Once I learned of these works, I diligently sought them out both online and in physical bookshops far and wide, nationally and internationally – including at Hay-on-Wye, the world-famous 'Town of Books' on the English-Welsh border that at its height contained around 40 second-hand book shops, which I frequented many times each year, purchasing numerous books, but without ever spotting any of Clinton's above-listed ones. Unsurprisingly, any spare copies that Clinton himself may once have owned were long gone, and so my search continued, and intensified – indeed, to a zoobibliophile like I am it became akin to finding the Holy Grail in printed form – but all to no avail. And then, last year, yet another online search by me made a sensational discovery – with permission granted by Clinton's widow Pam, a British natural history society had actually republished the first of Clinton's never-to-be-found ninesome and was planning to republish all of the remaining eight too!

The society in question was The Bartlett Society, named in honour of Abraham Dee Bartlett, the eminent 19^th-Century superintendent of the Zoological Society of London's gardens at Regent's Park, devoted to studying yesterday's methods of keeping wild animals, and founded in 1984 by none other than a certain C.H. Keeling! (Click here to visit its website.) When I contacted the Society informing them of my longstanding friendship with Clinton but my hitherto fruitless search for his books and my passionate interest in reading and reviewing their recently published edition of Where the Lion Trod, they very kindly sent me a review copy. Suddenly, after more than two decades, my quest for the first – indeed, for any – of Clinton's legendary Where the… books was at an end, as I found myself holding an exceedingly handsome A4-sized hardback book (RRP £24.95) with crimson covers and truly enthralling contents ensconced within its 146 pages.

Much has changed, especially with regard to zoological classification and animal husbandry, since Where the Lion Trod first appeared in 1984, but in order to preserve its original form and historical significance the Society has made what I feel to have been a wise decision, in that apart from correcting a few typos it has elected to leave the book's content unaltered, so that it remains essentially the very same volume that Clinton wrote more than three decades ago. The only notable difference, and one that is definitely very useful to the modern-day reader, is the addition at the end of each of its 20 principal chapters by the book's editor, John Adams, of an appendix containing a list of all of the animals referred to in it, plus some beneficial explanatory notes and updates where necessary. Each principal chapter is devoted to a different menagerie or zoological garden, arranged chronologically, beginning with the Tower of London Menagerie (c.1245-1832) in Chapter 2 (Chapter 1 is Clinton's own setting-the-stage introduction), and progressing chapter by chapter through such significant establishments as the Exeter 'Change and Surrey Zoological Garden, Windsor Park, the first Liverpool Zoological Garden, the Manchester Zoological Garden, the first Edinburgh Zoological Garden, the Cardiff Zoological Garden, and so on, ending in Chapter 20 with the Maidstone Zoological Garden, which closed in 1959. An additional chapter, entitled Final Cogitations, provides a concise, thoughtful conclusion and in turn offers much food for thought as to what is still to come in the subsequent eight Where the… books.

The Bartlett Society's edition of Clinton Keeling's previously-unpublished book Ligers, Tigons and Other Hybrid Mammals (photograph © The Bartlett Society – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Within each of the principal chapters, the content is standard, consisting of the history of how the establishment came into existence, the most notable animals that it exhibited at one time or another, where these animals originated and what happened to them once the establishment finally closed, and as previously noted a list of these animals – which for me is an especially fascinating portion, because it invariably includes a number of mystifying creatures whose zoological identities remain uncertain or entirely unresolved. Like me, Clinton had always been interested in cryptozoology, the investigation of animals whose existence or identity has yet to be ascertained by mainstream science, and he was not averse to speculating that some of the most baffling beasts exhibited at some of these menageries and zoological parks might actually have been species then-unknown and possibly even still unknown to science. Indeed, I have previously documented in a ShukerNature article (click here to access it) that some such beasts were the subject of an extensive communication sent to me by Clinton many years ago, in which he speculated that more than a century earlier some bona fide specimens of the Nandi bear – an infamously ferocious but formally unconfirmed Kenyan mystery mammal – may actually have been exhibited alive in Britain. Clinton was also very interested in hybrid animals, especially mammals, and referred to various examples that were exhibited in the establishments documented by him here. (Interestingly, he even wrote a book on this subject, Ligers, Tigons and Other Hybrid Mammals, pictured above, although it existed only in manuscript form until published by the Society in 2016, and is currently out of print – another Keeling book quest requires my undertaking, methinks!)

Last but by no means least, this already very sumptuous volume is made even more so by the addition of a series of exquisite reproductions of rare vintage illustrations of some of the zoos and their animals, scattered through the chapters. They serve very effectively, and evocatively, in conjuring these erstwhile establishments forth from the shadows of the distant (and sometimes not so distant) past, and breathing a visual life back into them, giving us a precious, seldom-seen glimpse of their heydays, as well as their triumphs, treasures, and tragedies.

I had planned to review this wonderful book some time ago, but as we all know only too well, 2020 has had other ideas as to what would be concentrating our minds and transforming our lives during the several past and likely many succeeding months, so my writings have fallen somewhat behind. Happily, however, I can now via this review wholeheartedly recommend The Bartlett Society's well-presented and extremely welcome resurrection of Clinton's first Where the… book, which I guarantee unreservedly will enthrall and entertain for a long time to come all readers with an interest in the history of zoological gardens in Britain and the vast array of extraordinary animals that they housed, often providing their astonished visitors with the very first views of their exotic species ever obtained on these shores.

I now await with bated breath the republication of Clinton's remaining eight volumes – who knows what surprises and delights await within their all-too-long unseen contents? (Indeed, even as I write this, his second book, Where the Crane Danced, is due to be published soon by the Society and can be pre-ordered there – click here.) Whatever they do contain, I do know with certainty that Clinton would heartily approve of his researches being made available to new and old generations of readers alike. I feel very privileged to have been one of his many friends, and to have been able to review this first volume in the much-deserved renaissance of his greatest works.

Incidentally, I had originally planned to list and briefly examine here some of the still-contentious beasts of mystifying, zoologically-opaque nature exhibited at certain of the establishments documented in this delightful book, but that would spoil the fun for its readers. Consequently, I'll leave them unconsidered, so that you can cogitate and reflect upon their putative identities for yourself when you buy it!

My sincere thanks to John Adams at The Bartlett Society for most generously providing me with a complimentary review copy of Where the Lion Trod.

Coming shortly - The Bartlett Society's soon-to-be republished edition of Clinton Keeling's book Where the Crane Danced (photograph © The Bartlett Society – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)