THE MINK. 183 



It is of a dark brown hue, with a line of black shining hair 

 reaching from the neck to the extremity of the tail. The 

 under parts are lighter ; some entirely Avhite. It possesses also 

 a very large, full, and expressive eye. 



Though spending its time among the trees, hunting for its 

 prey, it forms a burrow in the ground for its usual habitation. 

 It lives upon squirrels and rabbits, as well as grouse and other 

 birds and their eggs. Not only does it venture to attack the 

 well-armed porcupine, but it kills the animal, and eats it up, 

 quills and all. The difficulty of accomplishing this appears 

 very great, but there are numerous instances in which pekans 

 have been killed, when their Ijodies were found full of quills, 

 from which they did not appear to have suffered. They eat up, 

 indeed, both the flesh and bones of the porcupine — the latter 

 being so strong that a small bird cannot crack them. Mr. 

 Downs, the naturalist of Nova Scotia, states that he has 

 frequently found porcupine quills in the stomach of the fisher. 



The animal is hunted for the sake of its skin, which is of 

 some value — as also for amusement, especially h^ boys, as 

 the creature is not sufficiently formidable to cause any great 

 danger to them or their dogs. It is about four feet long, in- 

 cluding the tail, which measures about eighteen inches. 



THE MINK. 



Another denizen on the shores of the fresh waters of 

 Canada is the mink, called also the smaller otter, and some- 

 times known as the water pole-cat. It may be seen swim- 

 ming about the lakes, preferring generally the still waters in 

 autumn to the more rapidly-flowing currents of spring. It 

 somewhat resembles the otter, and differs in shape slightly 

 from the marten or ferret. Its teeth, however, are more like 



