256 MINK. 



ing, leading to a cavity between the weather-boarding and the sill. On 

 gently forcing outward a plank, we perceived the bright eyes of a Mink 

 peering at us and shining like a pair of diamonds. He had long been 

 thus snugly ensconced, and was enabled to supply himself with a regular 

 feast without leaving the house, as the hole opened toward the inside on 

 the floor. Summary justice was inflicted of course on the concealed rob- 

 ber, and peace and security once more were restored in the precincts of 

 the chicken-yard. 



This species is very numerous in the salt-marshes of the Southern 

 States, where it subsists principally on the marsh-hen, (Rallus crepitans^ 

 the sea-side finch, (Ammodra77ius maritimus,) and the sharp-tailed finch, 

 (A. caudacutus,) which, during a considerable portion of the year, feed 

 on the minute shell-fish and aquatic insects left on the mud and oyster- 

 banks, on the subsiding of the waters. We have seen a Mink winding 

 stealthily through the tall marsh-grass, pausing occasionally to take an 

 observation, and sometimes lying for the space of a minute flat upon the 

 mud : at length it draws its hind-feet far forwards under its body in the 

 manner of a cat, its back is arched, its tail curled, and it makes a sudden 

 spring. The screams of a captured marsh-hen succeed, and its up- 

 raised fluttering wing gives sufiicient evidence that it is about to be 

 transferred from its pleasant haunts in the marshes to the capacious maw 

 of the hungry Mink. 



It is at low tide that this animal usually captures the marsh-hen. We 

 have often at high spring tide observed a dozen of those birds standing 

 on a small field of floating sticks and matted grasses, gazing stupidly at 

 a Mink seated not five feet from them. No attempt was made by the 

 latter to capture the birds that were now within his reach. At first we 

 supposed that he might have already been satiated with food and was 

 disposed to leave the tempting marsh-hens till his appetite called for 

 more ; but we were after more mature reflection inclined to think that the 

 high spring tides which occur, exposing the whole marsh to view and 

 leaving no place of concealment, frighten the Mink as well as the marsh- 

 hen ; and as misery sometimes makes us familiar with strange associates, 

 so the Mink and the marsh-hen like neighbour and brother hold on to 

 their little floating islands till the waters subside, when each again 

 follows the instincts of nature. An instance of a similar effect of fear on 

 other animals was related to us by an old resident of Carolina : some forty 

 years ago, during a tremendous flood in the Santee river, he saw two or 

 three deer on a small mound not twenty feet in diameter, surrounded by 

 a wide sea of waters, with a cougar seated in the midst of them ; both 

 parties, having seemingly entered into a truce at a time when their lives 



