256 ANIMAL COMPETITORS 
small an animal, and has been known to drag 
a mallard duck more than a mile in order to 
get to its hole, where it was joined by its mate. 
Value of the mink. Such is the farmer’s 
view of the mink, but the picture is not with- 
.out a brighter side. His loss of chickens and 
eggs is largely due to his own slovenly way of 
keeping his property, or rather of trusting it 
to keep itself. The depredations of the mink 
are almost wholly made at night. A tight 
poultry-house will keep him out,—even a wire- 
fence of small mesh around the yard will do 
so. If the chickens are allowed to roost in 
trees or in any old shed it is foolish to com- 
plain when they are seized by rats, weaséls, 
minks, skunks or,—’coons. 
In its natural life the mink habitually feeds 
upon small mammals, birds and their eggs, 
fish, frogs, turtles’ eggs, crayfish, earthworms 
and the like. It is one of the busiest hunters 
of injurious rodents, particularly muskrats 
and common rats and mice. Hence it is a pub- 
lic benefactor in localities where muskrats 
damage dikes, canals, irrigating ditches, and 
ponds; and day by day it seeks out the runways 
