SECRETARY'S REPORT. 157 



him to bring his hind feet into the tracks made by the fore-feet, thus 

 giving a series of pairs of foot prints, about nine or ten inches apart. 



The nest of this animal is usually in a stone heap, or beneath a rock, 

 or in a ground-squirrel's burrow ; the young are from three to seven in 

 number, and are born in May, in this State. Like the other species, it 

 is generally nocturnal in its habits, and has an extremely disagreeable 

 odor. A number of fine specimens in the summer and winter dress and 

 change, furnish the following 



Description. — Head thick; muzzle blunted ; ears short and rounded; 

 body slender; limbs longer than with the preceding; feet large, the 

 anterior as wide, but not so long as the posterior, clothed with hair ; soles 

 and bottoms of the toes naked ; tail long, cylindrical, black for one-third 

 its length at the end. Summer dress — head and body above and on the 

 sides and outside the legs to the toes and the basal two-thirds of the tail, 

 chestnut-brown ; upper lip, and beneath the head, neck and body, and 

 between the fore legs to the toes, and between the hind legs to the ankles, 

 white. Winter dress — entirely white, with a yellowish tint ; the tip of 

 the tail black, as in the summer dress. Length of head, 2^ inches ; 

 length of head and body, 9 to 10^ inches ; length of tail, not including 

 hairs, 5 to 5^^ inches; including hairs, G^ to 7 inches; length of hind 

 foot If to If inches. 



P. vison, (Gapper.) — Common Mink. [PI. I., fig. 8.] 



This species is common in this State ; the value of its fur is sufficient 

 to cause it to be hunted and trapped to such an extent, that its numbers 

 are fast diminishing. It prefers the neighborhood of a stream or pond, 

 and swims well. Its great activity and strength permits it to conquer 

 animals much its superior in size, often killing the rabit and hai-e. I 

 have known it to drive off a cur dog when attacked by him. Like the 

 other weasels, it destroys great numbers of rats and mice, and often 

 visits the poultry-yard, where its destructive inclinations are allowed full 

 play, the death of the last fowl only satisfying it. 



The following interesting account of its habits is given by Audubon, 

 in his own happy style : " Next to the ermine, the mink is the most active 

 and destructive depredator that prowls around the farm-yard, or the 

 farmer's duck-pond, where the presence of one or two of these animals 

 will soon be made known by the sudden disappearance of sundry young 

 ducks and chickens. The vigilant farmer may perhaps see a fine fowl 

 moving in a singular and most involuntary manner, in the clutches of a 

 mink, towards a fissure in a rock, or a hole in some pile of stones, in the 

 gray of the morning, and should he rush to the spot to ascertain the fate 

 of the unfortunate bird, he will see it suddenly twitched into a hole too 

 deep for him to fathom, and wish he had carried with him his double- 



