286 Modern Fishculture in Fresh and Salt Water. 



eats fish in winter. All our net fishermen can prove 

 that they eat fish, as they are the most destructive thing 

 they have to deal with during the fall and winter 

 months. They chew into the nets and then chew out 

 again, and in this way they let out many fish before the 

 holes are located and repaired. As soon as the fisher- 

 men have their nets set in the fall, they commence trap- 

 ping around them, and in this way they catch most of 

 the rats; but there are always a few that remain un- 

 caught, which cause trouble all winter. 



" 'In the winter one can see places on the ice where 

 the muskrats have carried fish and eaten them night 

 after night. Last spring I saw a fish-box into which a 

 muskrat had gnawed a hole for the purpose of getting 

 at the fish.' " 



THE MINK varies his diet of poultry and game with 

 fish. Once I dug out a mink's nest, and found a great 

 lot of feathers, bones of birds and of fish, all around the 

 helpless young. The mother escaped by another hole, 

 and as for the old male mink, he would only take interest 

 enough in the family to kill the young ; and that is one 

 good trait in the mink, as cruel and bloodthirsty an ani- 

 mal as walks this planet one who kills for the love of 

 killing, and is almost as bad as the human game hog 

 who kills for count and brag. 



OTTERS are fish-eaters, and eat little else, but the 

 American fishculturist has no fear of them, for they are 

 entirely exterminated in parts that are only sparsely 

 settled; yet in Germany they are a. pest to the fishcul- 

 turist, and in that densely-populated land, yclept "Mer- 

 rie England," packs of other hounds are still kept up. 



THE BEAR visits the streams where suckers run up 

 to spawn in spring, and he impales them on his claws, 

 or scoops them on land, and possibly may agree with a 



