LITTLE BEASTS OF FIELD AND WOOD 



ice cake or stone wall furnishes one or more 

 opportunities which he is sure to improve, to the 

 indignation of the trappers, who declare that if 

 the minks would only be a little more careful 

 of their clothes, their fur would be just as valu- 

 able in March as in December. But before the 

 last of the winter most of them have so worn 

 away the glossy over-hair on their shoulders as 

 to have materially reduced the selling price of 

 their skins, besides having recklessly exposed 

 themselves to the increasing sunlight, which 

 causes the tips of the fur to curl over in little 

 hooks invisible to the untrained eye, but instantly 

 seized upon and condemned by the furrier, so 

 that by the time the season for trapping musk- 

 rats has fairly opened, minks are worth only about 

 half as much as they were in the fall, and soon 

 become practically valueless, though with char- 

 acteristic obstinacy they persist in stepping into 

 traps never intended for them. The trapper 

 who, in November, growled because the musk- 



