New York Weasel 
While minks are not social animals, they are, | am certain, 
much less in the way of putting up pitched battles when they 
meet than are the majority of the woodland folk. Sometimes 
half a dozen or more old males will gather about some _par- 
ticularly good fishing hole and to all appearances get along per- 
fectly together for weeks. 
In winter, when the still waters are frozen, they haunt open 
rapids and warm springs in the woods, or finding entrance beneath 
the ice of a closed brook, make extended excursions along the 
dim buried channel, alternately running beneath the ice and 
along the brook’s border where the falling away of the water 
has left a narrow strip of unfrozen turf beneath ice and snow. 
Here they catch small fish and meadow mice, or, tracing the 
brook’s course down to the wider reaches of the river, find larger 
fish and muskrats to try their strength upon. Water, however, 
is not essential to the minks’ happiness at any season, for they 
can hunt rabbits all winter long in the snow as successfully as 
the sable or fisher. 
Varieties of the Mink 
Northern Mink. Putorius vison (Schreber). Description and range 
as above. 
Southern Mink. P. vison Ilutreocephalus (Harlan). Length, 28 
inches. Larger and lighter, dark chestnut-brown, with white 
spots below as in the last. 
Range. Coast of Southern New England through the lowlands 
to North Carolina. 
Louistana Mink. P. vison vulgivagus (Bangs). Smaller and light 
yellowish-brown, chin and spots on under parts purer white. 
Range. Coasts of Louisiana and Texas. 
Florida Mink. P. lutensis (Bangs). Similar to the last, but still 
smaller, with longer head. 
Range. Salt marshes of Southern States, South Carolina to 
Florida. 
New York Weasel 
Putorius noveboracensis (Emmons) 
Length. 16 inches. Female 13 inches. 
Description. Tail always more than one-third the total length. 
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