172 NORTH AMERICAN MUSTELID.E. 



General history and habits of the MinJc, 



The history of the American Mink, to which we will confine 

 our attention, begins at an early date, long before Linnaeus con- 

 ferred precision upon zoological writing by establishing the 

 binomial nomenclature. Says Sagard-Theodat, in 163G, refer- 

 ring to the Hurons : — " lis out vers les Neutres une autre espece 

 d'animaux uommez Otay, ressemblaut ^ un escurieux grand 

 comme un petit lapin, d'un poll tres-noir, & si doux, poly & 

 beau qu'il semble de la panne. lis font grands cas de ces peaux 

 desquelles ils font des robes & couuertures, oii il y en entre 

 bien une soixantaine qu'ils embellissent part tout a I'entour, des 

 testes, & des queues de ces animaux qui leur donnent bonne 

 grace, & rendent riches en leur estitne." Early in the seven- 

 teenth century we find the animal unmistakably indicated under 

 the name of MiiiJc or jWlnx* The derivation of these words — or 

 rather of this term, for the two are obviously the same — is from 

 the original Swedish maenlz^ applied to the P. liUreola of Eu- 

 rope. The term otay had loug been in use at that time, and 

 foutereau was an Early French designation, used, for instance, 

 by La Hontan (1703) for '' a sort of small amphibious weasels". 

 Of the meaning of the term vison^ generally adopted since 

 Buffon as the specific designation, I have only to remark, on 

 the authority of von Martens, its apparent relation with 

 tveaselj through veso. The word jaclcash, sometimes found, is 

 obviously a rendering by an English tongue of the Cree name, 

 which is given by Richardson as Shahwceshew or AtjacJcashew. 



^' The Minx ", says La\\Tsou, about the beginning of the last 

 century, " is an animal much like the English Fillemart or 



throughout the same. Throat and soles of feet whitish. Forehead, cheeks, 

 region around eyes, and naked nasal jyad blackish-brown ; end of snout all 

 around (isolating the dark nose-pad), edge of upper lip, and chin white. 

 Length apparently about 15 inches ; tail-vertebne 6 or 7 ; hairs at the end 

 full 3 inches longer. 



Pallas says his animal is peculiar to Farther Siberia, from the Yenisei 

 River eastward to the sea, to the 60° parallel, but is not found in Kam- 

 tschatka nor in the Tschuctschi region. Gray attributes it to the Himalayas, 

 China, Japan, and Formosa, quoting Temminck, as above. 



*' The identity in form with the English niinjc may possibly be more than 

 fortuitous. Minx was a name of a female puppy, and subsequently signified 

 a pert, wanton girl, doubtless through the same association of ideas that 

 caused the vulgar name of a she-dog to become a shameful term of reproach 

 for a lewd woman. There is something in the forward, prying, and siiite- 

 ful nature of the animal to render minx applicable. 



