THE RARE FURS OF THE WEASEL FAMILY 99 



from Europe ; 20,000 from Asia. The Canadian Conservation 

 Report gives the Asiatic supply of sables at 75,000 annually; of 

 American marten at 120,000. As a matter of financial record, 

 362,675 mink were exported from Canada in 1890. In 1918, 66,297 

 mink sold in New York and 110,000 in St. Louis. In 1920 spring 

 sales, 160,000 mink sold at St. Louis and 7800 Russian sable and 

 22,500 marten; 21,941 mink sold in Montreal ; 3400 marten; 109 

 Russian sable; 275 stone marten in New York, almost 14,000 

 marten. 



I give those widely varying totals to illustrate the utter impos- 

 sibility of keeping any census of rare furs under the present system. 

 A high price such as ruled in 1920 for all the weasel family (except 

 otter) brings out furs stored and waiting for a higher price for per- 

 haps five years. A low price, or change in fashion, may relegate 

 back to cold storage rooms minks and martens sorted and ready 

 for sale ; but however you regard these figures, they don't look like 

 an exterminated weasel family. 



Take the mink first ; he is small, with a yellowish brown or 

 dark brown fur. He prefers the banks of streams but can live 

 the life of a landlubber, too. Birds, fish, mice, eggs are his favorite 

 diet ; but he kills for the sheer deviltry of killing ; and Hornaday 

 gives the depredations of one mink that killed six wild geese in one 

 night and of another that slaughtered ten gulls. The murderer 

 could not have sucked the blood of all these sleepers without burst- 

 ing. One beautiful morning, I found on my lawn the little body 

 of a beautiful red-breasted grosbeak. There was not a ruffle to 

 the feathers. The little fellow had perished in his sleep and fallen 

 to the ground. Then I looked closer. Right on the red of the breast 

 was a puncture no larger than the lead of a lead pencil. He had 

 been sucked to death as he slept. Another morning, I found a 

 fine Plymouth Rock pullet with the same murderous knitting needle 

 stab. Weasel family had been up to their midnight deviltries. 

 My sympathies don't run out to the mink, when he is transformed 

 into fur. 



