THE MINK 91 



disappeared amid a clump of hemlocks, and then 

 reappeared again a little beyond them. It de- 

 scribed a big loop around, and then crossed the 

 fox track only a few yards from the point where 

 its course was interrupted. Then it followed a 

 little watercourse, went under a rude bridge in a 

 wood-road, then mingled with squirrel tracks in 

 a denser part of the thicket. If the mink met 

 a muskrat or a rabbit in his travels, or came 

 upon a grouse, or quail, or a farmer's henroost, 

 he had the supper he was in quest of. 



I followed a mink's track one morning upon 

 the snow till I found where the prowler had 

 overtaken and kiUed a muskrat by a stone wall 

 near a little stream. The blood upon the snow 

 and the half-devoured body of the rat told the 

 whole story. The mink is very fond of musk- 

 rats, and trappers often use this flesh to bait 

 their traps. I wonder if he has learned to enter 

 the under-water hole to the muskrat's den, and 

 then seek him in his chamber above, where the 

 poor rat would have little chance to escape. 



The mink is only a larger weasel, and has 

 much of the boldness and bloodthirstiness of 

 that animal. One summer day my dog Lark and 

 I were sitting beside a small watercourse in the 

 woods, when I saw a mink coming up the stream 

 toward us. I sat motionless till the mink was 



