OUR COMMON MINK. 35 



hide in a marvelously small space. In fact, everything 

 is so favorable to it that it has learned no tricks, and re- 

 sorts to no stratagem when it finds itself at close quarters 

 with an enemy. It has, also, in common with the otter 

 and the musk-rat, the advantage of being as much at 

 home in the water as on the land ; and hence it largely 

 frequents those irreclaimable tracts of marsh and swamp 

 that, being useless to man, are but little frequented by 

 him. Still, the mink has suffered more than most animals 

 from the attentions of the professional trapper. 



Whenever I have seen a mink, in my meadow ram- 

 bles, I have been impressed with the fact that all animals 

 that fear man are as much on the lookout for him, and 

 try as sedulously to avoid him, as they do any of their 

 natural enemies. This fear of enemies I believe to be 

 ever uppermost in the minds of animals ; and possibly 

 the mink considers man an enemy to be shunned just as 

 decidedly as the toad shuns the snake. If, then, animals 

 entertain this dread of man at all times, is it at all strange 

 that we so seldom see them when we go bungling about 

 their haunts? We probably never take a walk in the 

 woods that w r e are not watched by many creatures which 

 we do not see ; and many a squeak or whistle, which, if 

 we heard at all, is attributed to some bird, is a signal-cry 

 of danger made by some one animal, which, having seen 

 us, takes this method of warning its fellows. Even the 

 little white-footed mouse can squeak so shrilly as to be 

 heard several yards ; and the bark of the gray squirrel is 

 a far-reaching note. The little ground-squirrel, or chip- 

 munk, can whistle a single note of warning, that scarcely 

 differs from the clear notes of the crested titmouse. 



I have more than once tested this in the case of the 

 mink. Mooring my boat near where I had reason to 

 believe these animals had their nests, and remaining per- 



