Note 46 — FIRST DISCOURSE (continued 2)

P. 72:

◆The proverb says, the ferret. It should be the ermine, which animal is said to allow itself to be caught rather than soil itself.

◆The opinion that the female ferret would die if it did not find a male to satisfy her during the mating season was still held by naturalists at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Lalanne is mistaken about the ermine, which, on the contrary, dies of the slightest contamination: