Miia 



leaves sloping up between the tree trunks; but even while I 

 looi<ed there was the mini< again several rods farther away and 

 just in the act of vanishing as before. 



I squeaked like a mouse to call her, but the wind was so 

 loud in the trees that I failed lo make myself heard; so I imi- 

 tated the chatter of a red-squirrel as closely as 1 could, and in- 

 stantly the mink came skipping toward me over the ice of a little 

 pond that lay between us. 



1 do not think that I have ever seen any other four-footed 

 creature, not even a deer or a fox, run with such baffling swift- 

 ness. 1 could ju.'^t catch the one image of her coming head up 

 across the sunlit ice before she disappeared in the sere frozen 

 water grass almost at my feet. 



Last Christmas day I saw a very large mink hunting a little 

 party of ruffed grouse among the pines and birches on a hill- 

 side. The grouse kept taking short nervous flights here and there, 

 while the mink beat the underbrush like a pointer and seemed to 

 be everywhere at once, and nowhere for more than a second at 

 a time, until finally he turned up where 1 least expected to see 

 him, almost behind me, digging excitedly beneath an old log, after 

 mice apparently, scattering the wet willow leaves to right and left 

 in his eagerness. On another occasion, when 1 was duck shoot- 

 ing, I saw a mink in the pines across a river, and called him over 

 to my side in order to have a look at him. Running down the 

 steep bank, he dived, and, swimming under water, only rose when 

 within a few yards of where 1 stood, and at once popped into 

 a burrow at the water's edge. A few seconds later he emerged 

 from another opening half-way up the bank, and running a little 

 way toward me, sat perfectly erect, eyeing me curiously, then 

 dropped to all fours and ran round to the other side to look 

 me over from thnt point of view. 



It was raining heavily all the time and there was no wind, 

 so he failed to catch my scent, and for some time continued to 

 examine at a distance of two or three paces without taking 

 alarm. When sitting upright he showed a narrow white line 

 down his throat, broken into a chain of spots between his fore 

 legs. At last, having satisfied his curiosity, he started off along 

 the bank with his head turned to one side, watching the rain- 

 dotted face of the water keenly, perhaps hoping to see the bulg- 

 ing eyes of a frog or a fish rising to break the surface. 



333 



