possessed of the same relentless bull-dog grip, locking them- 

 selves mechanically as they close. If left alone, however, the 

 badger is a very timid, gentle and, in a way, useful animal. 



It lives in burrows of its own digging and is exceedingly 

 cautious about exposing itself by day; comparatively few people 

 have been so fortunate as to see one except when caught in 

 a trap in its doorway, or drowned out. 



When by any chance a badger happens to be at any dis- 

 tance from its hole when approached, he usually prefers lying quiet 

 in the grass to making any run for it, being decidedly heavy 

 and slow of foot. At such time he will flatten himself down 

 almost like a door mat or a turtle. His long silky gray hair, 

 parted in the middle down along his spine, spreads out into the 

 grass on each side, so that he seems to be only a slight hum- 

 mock in the prairie, undoubtedly often deceiving the keenest 

 sighted into passing without so much as suspecting his presence. 



Even in a cage he will practice the same ruse to escape notice. I 

 have seen one spread himself out on the dirt which covered the 

 bottom of his cage, so successfully that out of every twenty 

 people passing close by him to stare at the miserable captives in 

 the neighbouring cages, I am positive not more than one or two 

 at most realized that his cage had an occupant; his black and 

 white striped head, looking so conspicuous in a mounted skin, 

 was somehow no more in evidence than his fog-tinted fur. 



The badger feeds principally on gophers, field mice, ground 

 squirrels, prairie dogs and such, like humble earth folk, laying 

 open their burrows with his strong claws faster than they can 

 dig away through the earth in their efforts to escape him. He 

 also eats grasshoppers, beetles, small snakes, etc. 



In cold weather he keeps to his den, probably wholly 

 dormant, for on appearing again in the spring, after months of 

 confinment underground, he is still almost as fat as in the pre- 

 ceding autumn. 



Mink 



Putorius vison (Schreber) 



Length. . 21 inches. 



Description. Larger than the weasel, with a thicker tail. Colour always 

 very dark-brown, nearly black, with a spot of white on the chin and 

 often on the chest or belly also. (Illustration facing p. 233.) 



231 



