MINK. 255 



way thirty or forty fine trout, which a Mink dragged off the bank into 

 the stream and devoured, and we have been told that by looking care- 

 fully after them, the Minks could be seen watching the fisherman and in 

 readiness to take his fish, should he leave it at any distance behind him. 

 Mr. HuTsoN of Halifax informed us that he had a salmon weighing four 

 pounds carried off by one of them. 



We have observed that the Mink is a tolerably expert fisher. On one 

 occasion, whilst seated near a trout-brook in the northern part of the 

 State of New York, we heard a sudden splashing in the stream and saw 

 a large trout gliding through the shallovir water and making for some 

 long overhanging roots on the side of the bank. A Mink was in close 

 pursuit, and dived after it ; in a moment afterwards it re-appeared with 

 the fish in its mouth. By a sudden rush we induced it to drop the trout, 

 which was upwards of a foot in length. 



We are disposed to believe, however, that fishes are not the principal 

 food on which the Mink subsists. We have sometimes seen it feeding 

 on frogs and cray-fish. In the Northern States we have often observed 

 it with a Wilson's meadow-mouse in its mouth, and in Carolina the very 

 common cotton-rat furnishes no small proportion of its food. We 

 have frequently remarked it coursing along the edges of the marshes, 

 and found that it was in search of this rat, which frequents such locali- 

 ties, and we discovered that it was not an unsuccessful mouser. We 

 once saw a Mink issuing from a hole in the earth, dragging by the 

 neck a large Florida rat. 



This species has a good nose, and is able to pursue its prey like a 

 hound following a deer. A friend of ours informed us that once while 

 standing on the border of a swamp near the Ashley river, he perceived a 

 marsh-hare dashing by him ; a moment after came a Mink with its nose 

 near the ground, following the frightened animal, apparently by the 

 scent, through the marsh. 



In the vicinity of Charleston, South Carolina, a hen-house was one 

 season robbed several nights in succession, the owner counting a chicken 

 less every morning. No idea could be formed, however, of the manner 

 in which it was carried off. The building was erected on posts, and was 

 securely locked, in addition to which precaution a very vigilant watch- 

 dog was now put on guard, being chained underneath the chicken-house. 

 Still, the number of fowls in it diminished nightly, and one was as before 

 missed every morning. 



We were at last requested to endeavour to ascertain the cause of the 

 vexatious and singular abstraction of our friend's chickens, and on a 

 careful examination we discovered a small hole in a corner of the build- 



