SWIMMERS 



would increase the fastest, and the females of the 

 race be smaller with each succeeding generation. 



I have no positive evidence that the male 

 minks possess this cannibal instinct, but, about 

 the time the young are brought forth, they sud- 

 denly begin to follow the females about every- 

 where they go, in a way which might be attrib- 

 uted to solicitude for their welfare and a desire 

 to afford them protection, but which I am very 

 much afraid only indicates hunger and a depraved 

 appetite. And the fact that so many of the family 

 of weasels have been convicted of a similar crime 

 is certainly against them. 



Trout brooks, tumbling over rocky beds, be- 

 tween wooded hills, are commonly supposed to 

 be the favourite haunts of minks ; but they seem 

 to be equally abundant along the more sluggish 

 reed-grown streams and mill-ponds of the low 

 lands, and in tangled swamps, or out on the tide- 

 swept marshes within sound of the breakers, 

 where they usually make their homes in hay- 



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