Mink 
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. | 
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, | 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. 
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