LITTLE BEASTS OF FIELD AND WOOD 



the struggle does not end here, for when the 

 mink prepares to bear its victim away in tri- 

 umph, the latter is apt to wind its body around 

 that of its captor, and generally succeeds in 

 throwing him end over end more than once 

 before being finally subdued and hauled away, 

 limp and unresisting, across the snow, which 

 when soft holds faithfully the entire history of 

 the contest, from the first confused and hysterical 

 flounderings at the edge of the water, to the 

 triumphal march of the mink up the steep bank, 

 with the eel dragging alongside. 



I have never succeeded in discovering how 

 they go to work to get earth-worms in winter, 

 but that they manage it in one way or another 

 is evident enough, for I have examined the 

 stomachs of half a dozen or more killed when 

 the ground, except around springs and similar 

 places, was frozen hard and covered with snow, 

 and most of them contained large red earth- 

 worms that had been swallowed whole, 



108 



