LITTLE BEASTS OF FIELD AND WOOD 



the dozen, as their cousins the ermines and pole- 

 cats are said to do. 



When a mink finds a muskrat caught in a 

 trap, he usually manages to eat pretty nearly half 

 of it the first night, and returns the following 

 night for some more. And it is quite possible 

 that in many instances when the trapper finds his 

 trap holding the foot of a muskrat only, and 

 concludes that the latter was determined to get 

 away, even if it cost a leg, that he has really been 

 robbed by a mink that has succeeded in dragging 

 away what was left after his meal. 



An old hunter, one of the closest observers of 

 nature I have ever known, once told me that 

 female minks hibernated in winter in the same 

 manner as bears, though it was his belief that, 

 unlike the bears, they never brought forth their 

 young at that season. At first I refused to take 

 the slightest stock in what he said, the whole 

 thing appeared so absurd and so utterly at vari- 

 ance with the teachings of those naturalists who 



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