338 THE TMAPPES. 



deadfalls are decidedly the best. A good woodsman will 

 make a great number of these traps in a day, and they 

 should be attended at least once a fortnight in the winter. 

 Different scents are used to allure the marten to the 

 traps, but nothing is more efficacious than the oil from 

 the beaver's oil bag. 



The mink (Mustela vison). This little animal was for- 

 merly very plentiful on almost every lake and river 

 in Canada, but unfortunately for it the fur became 

 fashionable a few years ago and the price of a skin jumped 

 from Is. up to 12s. or 14s. This rise of price was of 

 course disastrous to mink. They resemble the otter in 

 their habits and mode of feeding, but do not travel so far 

 in search of food. They are rarely met with any distance 

 from water. The mink is a comparatively tame little 

 animal and easily trapped either in deadfalls or steel traps 

 baited with fish. In summer I have seen them come 

 quite close to my feet and show little symptoms of alarm 

 even when I moved. The fur is in season from October 

 to May. Next to the skunk the mink has the strongest 

 and most disagreeable smell. They are said by the 

 Indians to catch snakes, but this I have never seen. 

 Some years ago, when mink fur was the fashion, and the 

 price consequently very high, "rninkeries" were established 

 in America. They did not pay however. Amongst other 

 drawbacks it was found, as might have been expected, that 

 the fur of the domesticated mink, was quite inferior to the 

 fur of the wild animal. 



The musquash (Fiber zibethicus) is often called a musk- 

 rat, and is, perhaps, on account of this name, not held in 

 as high estimation as it deserves. So far from being a 



