Mink 883 



Yet another interesting glimpse of the family life is fur- 

 nished me by A. Barton Hepburn, of New York. When he 

 was a boy living on the home farm at Colton, N. Y., he was 

 going with his father one day late in June across an alder 

 brook by the road bridge when they saw in the bushes to one 

 side an old Mink with 5 young ones that were about one- 

 quarter grown. They were following her, but when they 

 came to the road, they held back and would not quit the cover 

 to cross the road. She made several efforts to coax and lead 

 them on, but they were timid. At length she seemed to lose 

 patience; she seized them, one at a time, by the neck and so 

 carried them across to the opposite thicket, where they con- 

 tinued their journey. He saw nothing of the father Mink and 

 does not remember whether or not the mother made any 

 sounds. 



The little ones continue with the mother until the middle 

 of August; they have now learned something of the ways of life, 

 the family breaks up, and henceforth all are seen wandering 

 alone. They are now about half grown in point of weight. 

 As usual, the females mature sooner. We learn from Resseque" 

 that they attain to their full stature in ten months, and repro- 

 duce when one year old, "while the males are not full grown 

 until they are a year and a half old. It is noted that in every 

 litter one or the other sex predominates in numbers, there 

 being rarely half of them males and the other half females." 



There is but one brood each season. 



Fish are perhaps the Mink's choice food, and it delights food 

 in taking them by open pursuit in the clear water. Although it 

 is inferior to the Otter in this craft, Audubon and Bachman 

 record that they have seen one catch a trout a foot long.'^ A 

 quadruped that can catch a trout that size can catch anything 

 that swims in the smaller streams. Those that live along 

 the prairie sloughs feed chiefly on frogs, tadpole. Mice, and 

 Muskrats. The latter it follows under water into their 



" Coues, Fur-bearing Anim., 1877, p. 182. 

 " Quad. N. A., 1849, Vol. I, p. 255. 



