Mink 893 



on the newly forming ice. An hour or two afterwards he saw 

 a Mink come from the shore on the ice, which was then half an 

 inch thick; it seized the mallard by the neck and dragged it 

 away on the ice. Boger was seventy-five yards away; he 

 shouted, but the Mink gave no heed; it dragged the duck to 

 the rushes and disappeared with it. 



Coues mentions-" a similar case wherein the Mink dragged 

 a mallard half a mile to get it to its hole. As a full-grown 

 Mink weighs but 2 pounds, and a mallard over 3, it is as though 

 an ordinary man had dragged a 200-pound man for half a mile, 

 and did it with little difficulty. 



Charles Hallock records*' that he has known a Mink to 

 come and steal his trout as fast as he caught them, until it 

 had gone off with an aggregate weight of 12 pounds. 



This species is not a climber in the sense that a Marten is, climb- 

 but it can and does occasionally go aloft. Dr. T. W. Gilbert, 

 of Carberry, brought me a Mink that he shot out of a poplar 

 tree at a height of 1 5 feet. In Minkeries it is found that though 

 they cannot climb on a smooth surface, they easily go up a 

 rough tree trunk or fence. 



All of the Weasels have anal glands which give ofi^ a very ^^^^^ 

 strong and more or less offensive smell when the animal is 

 excited. The Skunk, of course, is the grand master in this 

 department, but the armament of the Mink is not to be de- 

 spised. It cannot squirt its liquid musk out to a distance as 

 can the Skunk, but it can and does pour forth a loathsome 

 plenty when the proper occasion has, in its opinion, arrived, 

 and this is whenever it considers itself in peril of its life, or is 

 suffering grievous bodily harm, or enraged against a rival, or 

 struggling in a trap. Merriam considers it a more unbearable 

 stench than that of the Skunk, and adds:" "It is the most ex- 

 ecrable smell with which my nostrils have as yet been offended, 

 and is more powerful and offensive in some individuals than 



"Fur-bearing Anim., 1877, p. 179. '^ Ibid., p. 180. 



" Mam. Adir., 1884, p. 67. 



