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…goes the weasel

The New Neo Posted on by

When I was a child my family used to visit a large chicken farm owned by some relatives. It was a commercial operation with enormous rooms the size of football fields (or so it seemed to me at the time) that smelled vaguely bad. When we’d walk into the room the chickens would cluck and scurry away from us and into a corner, agitated.

I loved the relatives and even the idea of going to a farm. But I didn’t like those chickens. That antipathy didn’t keep me from feeling horror one day when I was about four years old and heard talk that a weasel had killed one (or several?) of them. The corpse of the chicken was placed in a large trash barrel, and as they carted it away I had the opportunity to look in and see.

Did I take a peek? Or did I just imagine it and decide it would be too dreadful? I don’t recall, which is in itself odd because I tend to have very detailed childhood memories. But I certainly recall that, ever after, the word “weasel” gave me the creepy shivers.

I probably was already primed to dislike weasels anyway, because I detested jack-in-the-boxes (jacks-in-the-box?). Vile things, popping up for the sole purpose of scaring children. It was impossible to prepare properly even if one were familiar with the genre; the thing always sprang up just a little earlier or later than expected. And those tunes! “Pop Goes the Weasel”—what did it even mean? Monkey? Carpenter’s bench?

Well, I’m all grown up now, and there’s Google and Wiki. And what I’ve found is: nobody really knows what the song is all about:

Perhaps because of the obscure nature of the lyrics there have been many suggestions for what they mean, particularly the phrase “Pop! goes the weasel”, including: that it is a tailor’s flat iron, a dead weasel, a hatter’s tool, a clock reel used for measuring in spinning, a piece of silver plate, or that ‘weasel and stoat’ is Cockney rhyming slang for “coat”, which is “popped” or pawned to visit, or after visiting, the Eagle pub.

Other than correspondences, none of these theories has any additional evidence to support it, and some can be discounted because of the known history of the song. Iona and Pete Opie observed that, even at the height of the dance craze in the 1850s, no-one seemed to know what the phrase meant.

So, why am I writing about this now? I have a cousin who raises chickens (lots of em, although not as many as our relatives long ago) at his country place as a sort of intense hobby. There are quite a few, plus ducks and geese, and he goes after it in a very scientific manner. He told me yesterday that a weasel (actually, in this case a mink, but they are part of the same family) had gotten into the coop and killed all the chickens over a period of a couple of weeks, despite his best efforts to stop it. The special horror of this was that weasels kill far more animals than they can eat, biting the head and neck and leaving a scene of seemingly senseless carnage.

Immediately that long-ago trash barrel came to mind. But my real question—and one I’m throwing out to the crowd here—is why? Why would a creature just kill and kill like that?

My guess: a sort of feeding frenzy, the purposeful killing instinct plus the weasel equivalent of steroids, as it were. A propensity that, once released, doesn’t easily turn itself off.

And there is some support for that idea here:

Weasels are very active. They are always moving and hunting. Because they are so active, their heartbeat and breathing rates are very fast. A weasel’s heart beats 300-400 times per minute, which makes their body temperatures very warm. Some smaller weasels have a body temperature of around 104 degrees Fahrenheit…

Weasels are carnivores, which means that they mostly eat meat. Weasels are not scavengers; they don’t usually eat meat that they find. Instead, weasels prefer to eat animals that they kill themselves. Weasels also drink the blood of animals that they kill.

Weasels are very strong for their size. They can kill animals much bigger than they are such as rabbits and chickens. Weasels usually kill by biting their prey in the neck.

Weasels spend most of their time hunting. Weasels scurry around trying to smell mice or voles to eat. They also eat rabbits, chipmunks, shrews, rats, birds, and the occasional insect or earthworm. Once they smell them, the weasel does not give up and follows the trail. Often they follow the trail right into the animal’s burrow or den. Weasels eat half their body weight every day. Most weasels are nocturnal (active at night), but sometimes they hunt during the day.

Weasels have to eat a lot because they are very active. Sometimes they kill more than they can eat, so they will bury or store the extra food. They mark their food with their musk, making the food smell bad so that other animals won’t eat it.

So there we have the answer—at least, sort of. It still doesn’t seem quite complete to me. But combine a high metabolism with a huge need for for food and the ability to save food for the future and that’s at least part of the answer.

Weasels are only, after all, just doing the weaselly thing that weasels do: being weasels. And I suppose it is true that the world would have a lot more mice scampering around if it weren’t for weasels, so they have their place in the great dance of life and all that. But they still give me the willies.

Comments

…goes the weasel — 34 Comments

  1. Fergus: Well… there’s this scorpion, you see, and he wants to go across a river. Well, he can’t swim so he goes to this frog, who naturally enough can swim. And he says,

    [imitating the scorpion’s voice]

    Fergus: “Excuse me, Mr. Froggy. I want to go across the river.”
    [continues narrating]

    Fergus: So the frog accepts the idea. The scorpion hops on the frog’s back. Suddenly, the frog: “Aah!” He feels this sting! “You stung me! Why did you go and do that?” The scorpion looks at him and says, “I can’t help it, it’s in my nature”.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8x525Tk7KpI

  2. Short form, like people who enjoy killing, the weasels actually like it. It gives them pleasure. Psychopaths can report the same thing. But then again they’re only psychopaths. They are not at all like us. Are they?

  4. A weasel’s feeding habits and motives sound a lot like a politician, especially in fund raising mode.

  6. Some of us who have vulnerable animals (like chickens and guinea hens) also own dogs; dogs that stay out all night and walk among the chickens and other animals and kill things like weasels.

    They don’t call it an ecosystem for nothing.

  7. Whenever some psychopath commits an atrocity, one often hears something along the lines of: “I won’t dignify this scum by calling him an animal. No animal would do such a thing. They only kill to eat.” Blah, blah, blah.

    Weasles and many other animals can be plenty cruel, killing or maiming other animals (or people) just for sport or for some other unknown reason. The main difference is they lack the tools and planning brains of humans and thus (usually) cannot commit repeated or mass slaughter–though that weasel who killed the entire coop did quite well sans weaponry, with only a little walnut-brain.

    When I was a kid, the family had an adorable kitty I really loved. As cute as she was, when we’d let her outside she’d kill birds, mice, rabbits and chipmunks, often injuring the animal and then toying with it until it was dead. Then she’d drop it off on the porch as a gift of some sort (never to eat).

    Re “Why would a creature just kill and kill like that?”
    My theory is simple. Once aggression and killing has been bred into an animal, there are going to be situations and/or extreme individuals in which the natural instinct gets way out of control.

    Imagine being the designer of such an animal. What are the chances that you could design it such that all individuals in all situations would modulate their violent tendencies to the “correct” level? Zero. There will be a distribution of individuals and situations, and at one end of the distribution there will be individuals/situations in which the aggression and violence reaches extraordinary levels. IMHO, the same applies to humans.

  8. a weasel had killed one (or several?) of them

    Several, more than likely. Weasels really like to drink blood, it’s a high octane food source for them, and easy with cooped up chickens who can’t escape. Why stop to eat the carcass when there’s so much blood available?

    Only downside is that the weasel usually drinks itself into a stupor, and tends to get caught and killed by the owner of the chickens.

  10. A long time ago my elderly grandmother told of her grandfather’s 3rd wife “little Mama Cuthebertson” admonishing my grandmother and her sisters (must have been 1912 or thereabouts) as they walked in a ring and sang “Pop goes the Weasel”.

    “Why must you sing that nasty (and maybe ‘wicked’) song?”

    I asked my grandmother what was nasty about it, and she laughed and said she had absolutely no idea. Something about the monkey chasing the weasel may have upset old the old lady. Or maybe not. Maybe it was a Missouri thing. Or maybe she just couldn’t stand hearing the children relentlessly repeat it.

    The only weasels I’ve seen in the wild were of the Pine Marten variety. Standing on a snowy ridge top looking out over a valley for signs of deer when out peeps this thing’s head from a hole in a tree trunk and you find yourself saying, “I know damn well that that’s no squirrel …”

  12. Interesting. A few days ago, I found a dead rabbit under a shrub in our yard. It’s neck was ripped open. Otherwise untouched. We live close to a wooded area that provides good habitat for wild critters. My first thought was that it was a mink, weasel, or an owl. Probably not an owl – it would have been out in the open rather than under a shrub. They all do that – because they can. And there must be some inbred pleasure mechanism. When we first moved here six years ago we had quite a number of rabbits. We don’t see many these days.

  13. Re Rabbits and other cute vermin. We’re fortunate enough to have a family of foxes move into the neighborhood. And no, I’m not referring to shapely strawberry blonde sisters … unfortunately. Real foxes. They’ve cleaned out the rabbits, most of the squirrels, and all of the moles as nearly as I can tell.

    While looking out the picture window in the bedroom one morning, I saw one leap 4 feet high up against a tree trunk to drag down a fleeing squirrel. If I wasn’t buttoning up my shirt at the time, I would have applauded.

    They deserve an award for my money. I might even get a few pears or walnuts if they manage to kill those remaining squirrels which seem to be programmed to strip and destroy every half grown pear off of every tree they can reach.

    Three local hawks seem to help.

    Given my choice I’d prefer quail or pheasants over any of them. But since that’s not the choice I get, I’ll take the squirrel killers.

  14. Nature can indeed be cruel, witness killer Whales ‘playing’ with baby seals, repeatedly tossing them high into the air before eating them. A cat ‘playing’ with a mouse. Predators feeding upon their prey, while it is still alive.

    At risk of being accused of anthropomorphizing animals, different animal species appear to embody certain temperaments in common with humans. The playfulness of river otters is a joy to see. The inherent ‘foul temper’ of the grizzly bear. The bovine complacency of cattle.

    There’s a reason why calling someone a “weasel” has entered our lexicon. There’s a reason why a verbal Rorschach of Anthony Weiner immediately brings to mind the word “weasel”.

  15. J.J. formerly Jimmy J.
    When we first moved here six years ago we had quite a number of rabbits. We don’t see many these days.

    If weasels were responsible for the reduction in rabbits in your area, perhaps some weasels should be sent to Australia to deal with the rabbit overpopulation.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbits_in_Australia

  16. the earliest versions date to the 1700s, and the song became popular in the mid 1800s…

    it originated in England, and came over the sea, where its popularity was copied, but its meaning was lost between slang systems. In this case Cockney.
    or more particular… rhyming slang

    from wiki
    Rhyming slang is a form of phrase construction in the English language and is especially prevalent in dialectal English from the East End of London; hence the alternative name, Cockney rhyming slang

    given the way it works, it probably shifts awful lot over the years and generations. though they tend to replace key words with another word that rhymes.

    According to Partridge (1972:12), it dates from around 1840 and arose in the East End of London, however John Camden Hotten in his 1859 Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant and Vulgar Words states that (English) rhyming slang originated “about twelve or fifteen years ago” (i.e. in the 1840s) with ‘chaunters’ and ‘patterers’ in the Seven Dials area of London. (The reference is to travelling salesmen of certain kinds. Chaunters sold sheet music and patterers offered cheap, tawdry goods at fairs and markets up and down the country). Hotten’s Dictionary included a “Glossary of the Rhyming Slang”, the first known such work. It included later mainstays such as “Frog and toad–the main road” and “Apples and pears–stairs” as well as many that later grew more obscure, e.g. “Battle of the Nile–a tile (vulgar term for a hat)”, “Duke of York–take a walk”, and “Top of Rome–home”.

    just as wealthy people think its chic to rip their clothes and make poverty look good (how insulting to the poor), and wear it as fashion, the lords and ladies who make things popular and recorded such, tended to swipe a bit from the underclass.

    To “Pop” is the slang word for “Pawn”.
    “weasel and stoat” meaning coat

    Pawn your coat

    Up and down the City Road
    In and out the Eagle
    That’s the way the money goes
    Pop! goes the weasel.

    wandering the road with no work
    in and out of the pub
    that’s the way your money goes
    pawn the coat

    would you believe that the eagle still exists?
    though it became a music hall…
    then it became a public house…
    and now its a pub again…

    Just a short meander from Shoreditch, you’ll find The Eagle – possibly the only pub you’ll ever frequent that’s famed for its name-check in a nursery rhyme
    http://www.theeaglehoxton.co.uk/

  17. Gringo…

    I figured they would have had the rabbit problem licked by now… Coney do make good stew though, i have no idea about wallaby 🙂

  19. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33qGtyR6Q10

    Lords of acid.

    Wasn’t my cup o tea.

    But, in fact, metal heads are amazingingly and without lobotomy conservative. Hugely, and I mean, HUGELY, so.

    It’s almost as if they only really challenged reality, looked directly in the sun, and came out the other side.

  23. Australia solved its rabbit problem with biological warfare. It introduced the myxomatosis virus, which killed 99.8% of rabbits that were infected.

    Current biotechnology could easily engineer a virus as infectious and deadly to Homo Sapiens.

  24. What’s a weasel to do when confronted with more chickens than it can eat at one sitting? It’s going to do what weasel’s do; kill more than it can eat. It’s not a natural situation for a weasel to be in. It’s not like weasels routinely run into situations where tasty critters are confined in large numbers. The odd thing would be if the weasel acted in way that made sense to people. Such as conserving some chickens for future use. How’s the weasel to know if it doesn’t kill all the chickens today, there will be chickens to kill next week?

  26. A strict Hindu does not eat meat. Or dairy. That to me is a singular fact requiring analysis. Caveman somehow became Hindu and abhored the taking of life for subsistence.

    Did that happen fairly quickly, like “punctuated evolution?” In other words, how did any particular Hindu, in observing his religion, wrest himself away from one half million years of eating meat?

    The record isn’t clear here. Did it happen gradually or suddenly? Like “punctuated evolution” the facts resist generalization.

  28. The Greatest, ( and most cuddley) of the weasel family, is the Most Noble Badger, that lives on brats, pizza, fried chicken, and Dad’s root beer!

  29. Does your cousin have a .22? A CCI Stinger, or a Remington Yellow Jacket will take the starch out of the toughest weasel.

  30. Wolverines are also a member of the weasel family and are known for their incredible savagery. They have been known to attack *bears*. Something in the DNA of weasels (of all kinds, including wolverines and badgers) apparently predisposes them to their acts of violence, killing without any discernible reason. They are perhaps the most insane animals of all (excluding humans, of course).

  31. Art writes:

    To “Pop” is the slang word for “Pawn”.
    “weasel and stoat” meaning coat

    Pawn your coat

    Up and down the City Road
    In and out the Eagle
    That’s the way the money goes
    Pop! goes the weasel.”

    Nice explanation. Thanks. But … gee … What happened to the mulberry bush and the monkey?

  32. Pat @ August 20th, 2013 at 10:16 pm

    Australia solved its rabbit problem with biological warfare. It introduced the myxomatosis virus, which killed 99.8% of rabbits that were infected.

    Not quite. According to Wiki,

    In 1950, after research was conducted by Frank Fenner, myxoma virus was deliberately released into the rabbit population, causing it to drop from an estimated 600 million[15] to around 100 million. Genetic resistance in the remaining rabbits allowed the population to recover to 200-300 million by 1991.

    It helped, but resistance set in.

    Since 1991,there have been other viruses tested and released.

  33. I checked out the Eagle Pub website. The wallpaper shown in a picture on the gallery page is quite appropriate to the conversation…

  34. You gotta be careful with “solving the problem.” I can’t recall specifics but I’ve heard of trying to solve a problem with invasive species by introducing a different critter, causing yet another problem.

    You’d think the cat problem would solve the rabbit problem, but I guess they haven’t gotten to equilibrium yet…

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