258 MINK. 



bird. The Mink is exceedingly tenacious of life, and we have found it 

 still alive under a dead-fall, with a pole \jing across its body pressed 

 down by a weight of 150 lbs., beneath which it had been struggling for 

 nearly twenty-four hours. 



This species, as well as the skunk and the ermine, emits an offensive 

 odour when provoked by men or dogs, and this habit is exercised like- 

 wise in a moderate degree whenever it is engaged in any severe struggle 

 with an animal or bird on which it has seized. We were once attracted 

 by the peculiar and well known plaintive cry of a hare, in a marsh on 

 the side of one of our Southern rice-fields, and our olfactories were at the 

 same time regaled A^ath the strong fetid odour of the Mink ; we found it 

 in possession of a large marsh-hare, with which, from the appearance of 

 the trampled grass and mud, it had been engaged in a fierce struggle for 

 some time. 



The latter end of February or the beginning of March, in the latitude 

 of Albany, N. Y., is the rutting season of the Mink. At this period the 

 ground is usually stUl covered with snow, but the male is notwithstanding 

 very restless, and his tracks may everjr where be traced, along ponds, 

 among the slabs around saw-mills, and along nearly every stream of 

 water. He seems to keep on foot all day as well as through the whole 

 night. Ha\'ing for several days in succession observed a number of 

 Minks on the ice hurrying up and down a mill-pond, where we had not 

 observed any during a whole winter, we took a position near a place 

 ■which ^ve had seen them pass, in order to procure some of them. 



We shot six in the course of the morning, and ascertained that they 

 were all large and old males. As we did not find a single female in a 

 week, whilst we obtained a great number of males, "\ve came to the con- 

 clusion that the females, during this period, remain in their burrows. 

 About the latter end of April the 3-oimg are produced. We saw six young 

 dug from a hole in the bank of a Carolina rice-field ; on another occa- 

 sion we found five enclosed in a large nest situated on a small island in 

 the marshes of Ashley river. In the State of New York, we saw five 

 taken from a hollow log, and we are inclined to set do\vn that as the 

 average nmnber of young this species brings forth at a time. 



The Mink, w^hen taken young, becomes very gentle and forms a strong 

 attachment to those who fondle it in a state of domestication. Richaed- 

 BON saw one in the " possession of a Canadian woman, that passed the 

 day in her pocket, looking out occasionally when its attention was roused 

 by any unusual noise." We had in our possession a pet of this kind for 

 eighteen months ; it regularlj' made a visit to an adjoining fish-pond both 

 morning and evening, and retvirned to the house of its own accord, where 



