260 ANIMAL COMPETITORS 
seque, a mink-breeder whose experience and 
methods are described particularly in Elliot 
Coues’s Fur-bearing Animals, admits, how- 
ever, that they become exceedingly mischiev- 
ous, prying into all sorts of food receptacles, 
etc., and can hardly be recommended as house- 
hold pets. Merriam trained some in his pos- 
session to be excellent ratters, following the 
rats into their holes and soon clearing all the 
premises of this pest. 
Care of captive minks. In planning a 
minkery a yard say 50 feet square should be 
set apart and enclosed by a tight board fence 
7 or 8 feet high, which should rest upon a stone 
or cenient foundation sunk 2 feet into the 
ground; or else a close and strong wire netting 
must be deeply sunk along the bottom, for 
minks are good diggers. The top of the fence 
should have an inward overhang of tin, zinc 
or galvanized iron at least 2 feet wide, and still 
broader at the corners, or else the animals will 
climb out. Of course the best way would be 
to pave the whole interior with, and base the 
fence upon, concrete, but this is costly; if it is 
