TRACKER'S EXCURSIONS. 151 



I will here state that I found a muskrat house to contain 

 from four to nine rats. I have caught as many as nine from 

 one house. Possibly some may contain a greater number than 

 this. I concluded that these colonies must be the progeny of 

 a single rat in one season, or for aught I know, at a single 

 litter. 



In these winter excursions, I sometimes captured several 

 minks, which I found somewhat different from the mink of the 

 Eastern States, being much larger, and of a lighter brown 

 color and coarser fur. I sometimes found them occupying 

 muskrat houses, from which they had driven or destroyed the 

 muskrats, of the flesh of which they are very fond. They are 

 a gross-feeding, carnivorous animal. I have found stored up 

 in muskrat houses which they inhabited, from a peck to half 

 a bushel of fish, in all stages of decay, and some freshly 

 caught and alive : which is good evidence that they are not 

 only gross feeders, but good fishers also. I was most success- 

 ful in taking the mink in steel-traps, baiting with muskrat- 

 flesh or fish, and setting my traps about the marshes, and 

 along the banks of streams and rivers. A mink will seldom 

 pass a bait without taking or smelling at it ; and by placing 

 the bait a little beyond the trap, in such a position that he 

 must pass over the trap in order to reach it, you are pretty 

 sure of him. I also caught them by setting the trap in the 

 mouth of their dens and in hollow logs, and sometimes en- 

 joyed the sport of digging them out of the river-bank. 



In setting my traps for mink and raccoon, I was somewhat 

 annoyed by the prairie wolf taking the bait, but still more by 

 the skunks getting into the traps. The country at this time 

 abounded with these animals.- They seemed to be nearly as 

 plenty as the minks. I have sometimes found as many as 

 two or three in my traps on a morning. It was an easy 

 matter enough to dispatch one, but to do it and not get my 

 trap scented was not so easy. (Here let me say, I never 

 knew one caught in a trap to discharge at all, until disturbed 

 by the approach of man.) After trying several unsuccessful 

 plans, I hit upon one that I thought would do the business- 

 Putting a tremendous charge of powder and ball into my rifle,. 



