208 AUDUBON THE NATURALIST. 
octavo edition of the “Birds of America,” the 
publication of which was not then completed. 
The work on the quadrupeds has since been re: 
published by.V. G. Audubon, in an octavo form, 
to correspond in size with the small edition of 
the Birds, and we have been permitted to make 
some extracts from it, which we gladly add to 
the foregoing pages. 
THE MINK. 
Next to the ermine, the mink is the mast 
active and destructive little depredator that 
prowls around the farm-yard, or the farmer’s 
duck-pond; where the presence of one or two of 
these animals will soon be made known by the 
sudden disappearance of sundry young ducks 
and chickens. The vigilant farmer may per- 
haps see a fine fowl moving in a singular and 
most involuntary manner, in the clutches of a 
mink, towards a fissure in a rock ora hole in 
' some. pile of stones, in the gray of the morning, 
and should he rush to the spot to ascertain the 
fate of the unfortunate bird, he will see it sudden- 
ly twitched into a hole too deep for him to fachom, 
and wish he had ¢garried with him his double- 
barreled gun, to have ended at once the life of 
the voracious destroyer of his carefully tended 
voultry. Our friend, the farmer, ix nut, how 
