4io 



NATURE STUDY AND LIFE 



multiply with such rapidity, and when this is accomplished 

 there will be one less argument for keeping cats. 



Several other common animals may be studied as occa- 

 sion offers, among them, woodchucks, muskrats, minks, 

 otters, skunks, moles, shrews, and weasels. For the char- 

 acter of the latter the description of Kagax given by Long 

 in Wilderness Ways is admirable. To his graphic account 



FIG. 166. TAMING A WOOD TURTLE 



the writer may add that one morning, when a boy, he found 

 six sheep dead near an old straw stack in a field. The only 

 marks of violence in each case were four little cuts behind 

 the ear, where an artery had been severed. The straw stack 

 was burned during the day, and two old weasels, with a 

 litter of half -grown young, were found and killed. 



Turtles. These may be brought in by the pupils and 

 acquaintance made with a few of the commoner species. 



