Mint 
leaves sloping up between the tree trunks; but even while | 
looked there was the mink again several rods farther away and 
just in the act of vanishing as before. 
I squeaked like a mouse to call her, but the wind was so 
loud in the trees that I failed to make myself heard; so I imi- 
tated the chatter of a red-squirrel as closely as | could, and in- 
stantly the mink came skipping toward me over the ice of a little 
pond that lay between us. 
1 do not think that I have ever seen any other four-footed 
creature, not even a deer or a fox, run with such baffling swift- 
ness. | could just catch the one image of her coming head up 
across the sunlit ice before she disappeared in the sere frozen 
water grass almost at my feet. 
Last Christmas day I saw a very large mink hunting a little 
party of ruffed grouse among the pines and birches on a hill- 
side. The grouse kept taking short nervous flights here and there, 
while the mink beat the underbrush like a pointer and seemed to 
be everywhere at once, and nowhere for more than a second at 
a time, until finally he turned up where | least expected to see 
him, almost behind me, digging excitedly beneath an old log, after 
mice apparently, scattering the wet willow leaves to right and left 
in his eagerness. On another occasion, when | was duck shoot- 
ing, | saw a mink in the pines across a river, and called him over 
to my side in order to have a look at him. Running down the 
steep bank, he dived, and, swimming under water, only rose when 
within a few yards of where I stood, and at once popped into 
a burrow at the water's edge. A few seconds later he emerged 
from another opening half-way up the bank, and running a little 
way toward me, sat perfectly erect, eyeing me curiously, then 
dropped to all fours and ran round to the other side to look 
me over from that point of view. 
It was raining heavily all the time and there was no wind, 
so he failed to catch my scent, and for some time continued to 
examine at a distance of two or three paces without taking 
alarm. When sitting upright he showed a narrow white line 
down his throat, broken into a chain of spots between his fore 
legs. At last, having satisfied his curiosity, he started off along 
the bank with his head turned to one side, watching the rain- 
dotted face of the water keenly, perhaps hoping to see the bulg- 
ing eyes of a frog or a fish rising to break the surface. 
333 
