S6 



RECREATION. 



boy. The three, boy, dog and spade, 

 appeared at the forest edge some morning 

 just after a light fall of snow had come ; 

 then all tracks must be fresh ; then the 

 creek was frozen over and little susten- 

 ance was to be had from its denizens 

 even by the shrewd brown creature 

 who knew where all the air holes were. 

 So, perforce, he left the creek and 

 hunted on the beech ridges where, even 

 in mid-winter, were possibly obtainable 

 the wood mice and even the chipmunks 

 to whose home there led an orifice acci- 

 dentally large enough for this small, 

 sinuous terror. From where he left the 

 ■creek there was a track unmistakable 

 which the boy knew well. And it is all 

 -curious about this track and about the 

 mink's various ways in winter. 



How does the mink make those twin 

 tracks, those two impressions in the 

 snow which are like nothing else in the 

 world, which are like the imprint of no 

 other animal in existence, which are as 

 recognizable, to the boy of sens*, where 

 snow is, as may be the print of a horse's 

 shodden hoof upon a muddy road? 

 The boy knows all about it when he 

 sees those coupled pads — that's a mink 

 track, that's all there is to it. The 

 boy, spade shouldered, and the dog fol- 

 low the track into the uplands where the 

 beech trees are, where are brush and log 

 heaps formed by fallen trees, where are 

 mazes which are intricate through brush- 

 wood and over and around hillocks, 

 sandy and crowned by wintergreens in 

 summer time. In this small world the 

 chipmunk nests and all about and 

 everywhere the wood mouse has its home, 

 and upon these the mink, this beauti- 

 ful, carnivorous creature, is feeding with 

 the appetite of zero. But behind him 

 stalks the headsman ! There are the 

 boy, the dog, the ax and the spade ! 



Tell me about this — tell me some of 

 those whose eyes may rest upon these 

 vagrant sentences — tell me how the 

 mink makes those twin pads so curiously. 

 I wish somebody would lurk somewhere 

 with a kodak and catch the mink on 

 the spring, or lope, or whatever it may 

 be, and show us just how this queer 

 track is made upon the snow. And, I 

 wish somebody would tell, too, why the 

 mink in going across country in mid- 

 winter over a snow-clad surface sud- 

 denly dives into the snow and for 

 fifteen or twenty, or it may be forty, 



feet, disappears under the white surface 

 and then emerges, making for a season 

 the same twin pads as before. What 

 does he do that f o*r ? Is it some in- 

 stinct of heredity, of atavism, or what- 

 ever you may choose to call it, which 

 makes him repeat some lesson of the 

 distant past when his ancestors dodged 

 things with no intelligence ? 



Well, the mink, poor, fierce, small 

 entity, could not hunt without leaving 

 a track behind him on the snow freshly 

 fallen, and the boy, dog, ax and spade 

 coming swiftly behind were real things. 

 The mink hunted carelessly, wasted 

 time, ate this chipmunk or that wood- 

 mouse, dived under snow or swept 

 along over snow, but there were the 

 pursuers. His track could not delude 

 them. Eventually he was " holed," then 

 came the spade to dig, the ax to cut 

 the twining forest roots in the way of 

 the digging, the swift, intelligent cur, 

 watchful all the time to seize upon the 

 quarry as, at last, it leaped forth to take 

 the one chance in a thousand of escape 

 from such contingency. And that was 

 the story, at one time, of mink hunting 

 in Michigan, and all through the 

 northern belt, and, it may be added, it 

 is to a great extent, the story of to-day. 



But it is along the creek that the life 

 of the mink is chiefly led and there his 

 story lies. It is along the creek that he 

 is chiefly caught and there the story of 

 the trapping lies. He is a beautiful, 

 blood-thirsty loafer, — this same mink. 

 Largely he drifts through life, that is, 

 he floats upon the stream in a literal 

 way though he has to breast it when 

 reaching his home again. His home is 

 deep beneath the bole of some tree whose 

 extending roots lap the fresh water. 

 There are cavernous ways which he has 

 perhaps aided in making — though I do 

 not know about that, — leading to the 

 nest and the home where is the wonder- 

 ful creature whom he has wooed and 

 won and who is worth the wooing. As 

 to the kittens I know nothing. I wish 

 some one would tell us something about 

 the kittens of the mink. 



The minks' hunting along the streams 

 — of which I have seen a little, — must 

 be, to them, most entertaining. It is 

 adventure after adventure, always blood- 

 thirsty and bloody, when successful. 

 The mink in winter follows the water 

 courses and finds his time of riot at the 



