While looking up a few statistics in “The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mammals,” I learned that there are 368 species of mammals currently living wild in North America north of Mexico. These range in size from the least shrew that equals a dime in weight right up to the Alaskan brown bear that reaches 1,700 pounds.

The group we call “carnivores” — those that kill and eat other animals — make up 54 species, indicating that eating meat is a popular means of sustenance along the La Crosse River Trail. And they start counting with the smallest weasel, thus omitting all the shrews, moles and bats that dine just as shamelessly on other living, breathing creatures as do the larger meat-eaters.

Be that as it may, I began to tell you about that smallest weasel. So, using their rules, here goes.

It isn’t easy to forget something as unique as the least weasel. This fellow is described as being 6.75 to just over 8 inches long and weighing less than two ounces. To me, it looks like a wiener with short legs and very short fur — fur that is light brown during the summer and white, at least in the north, where snow is likely, during the winter. However, it lacks one detail, something common to the rest of the weasels. It lacks a black tip on its tail. That detail disqualified it from being called “ermine” and ruled it out as trimming on royal robes during the days when a king’s word was law. Indeed, this little rascal may owe its very existence today to that inexcusable shortcoming.

There was a time when scientific minds all over the world recognized two species of least weasel, one American and one Eurasian. This separation has been discontinued for lack of evidence that there is any difference between them. With the stroke of a pen, one former species was eliminated, while a new circumboreal — or around the world in the Northern Hemisphere — species was created.

This little weasel is a difficult creature to see. Size may be a part of that, for anything that small is not easy to spot in the woods. I have had two opportunities to see one of these fellows, though. My first encounter with it was on a winter night many years ago. I was driving to La Crosse to attend a Naval Reserve function and was passing through the cut atop Nathan Hill on Highway 16 when I saw this tiny white thing run through the headlight glow in front of me. Had I been meeting any traffic, I would never have seen it. But I was all alone on the road, and there it was — for the briefest of moments, and, then, it was gone.

My second encounter was longer. And closer. We had been in for dinner on the farm where I was working, and, after eating, I had come out and lay down on a closely clipped lawn to await the rest of the crew. I caught motion in the grass from the corner of an eye, and there it was, wiener-sized and having difficulty with short lawn grass — least weasel, without doubt, in summer brown, just a few feet away! One more little adventure along the trail.