TRACKER'S EXCURSIONS. 161 



I will here state that I found a muskrat house to contain 

 from four to nine rats. I have caught as many as nine from 

 one house. Possibly some may contain a greater number than 

 this. I concluded tliat these colonies must be the progeny of 

 a single rat in one season, or for aught I know, at a single 

 litter. 



In these winter excursions, I sometimes captured several 

 minks, which I found somewhat different from the mink of the 

 Eastern States, being much larger, and of a lighter brown 

 color and coarser fur. I sometimes found them occupying 

 muskrat houses, from which they had driven or destroyed the 

 muskrats, of the flesh of which they are very fond. They are 

 a gross-feeding, carnivorous animal. I have found stored up 

 in muskrat houses which they inhabited, from a peck to half 

 a bushel of fish, in all stages of decay, and some freshly 

 caught and alive : which is good evidence that they are not 

 only gross feeders, but good fishers also. I was most success- 

 ful in taking the mink in steel-traps, baiting with muskrat- 

 flesh or fish, and setting my traps about the marshes, and 

 alono: the banks of streams and rivers. A mink will seldom 

 pass a bait without taking or smelling at it ; and by placing 

 the bait a little beyond the trap, in such a position that he 

 must pass over the trap in order to reach it, you are pretty 

 sure of him. I also caught them by setting the trap in the 

 mouth of their dens and in hollow logs, and sometimes en- 

 joyed the sport of digging them Gut of the river-bank. 



In setting my traps for mink and raccoon, I was somewhat 

 annoyed by the prairie wolf taking the bait, but still more by 

 the skunks getting into the traps. The country at this time 

 abounded with these animals. They seemed to be nearly as 

 plenty as the minks. I have sometimes found as many as 

 two or three in my traps on a morning. It was an easy 

 matter enough to dispatch one, but to do it and not get my 

 trap scented was not so easy. (Here let me say, I never 

 knew one caught in a trap to discharge at all, until disturbed 

 by the approach of man.) After trying several unsuccessful 

 plans, I hit upon one that I thought would do the business. 

 Putting a tremendous charge of powder and ball into my rifle, 



