656 NOTES OF A FUR HUNTER. 
Weaset (Putorius).* The Weasel lives principally 
upon mice; is said, I don’t know how truly, to kill hens 
and partridges. Once I found that some duck feathers 
I had left in a camp had. been dragged into a barrel of 
hard-bread by a weasel, for lining toa nest. I have had 
them so tame in the camp, as to come into my lap and 
eat fresh fish and partridge. They are brown in summer, 
and white in winter. 
Mink (Putorius vison Rich.). The Mink is a sly, thiev- 
ish creature. They eat fish and frogs. I have seen 
where they brought the frogs in to their young. The nest 
was under the roots of a tree. The color is black or 
dark brown; when shedding their coat, they are a little 
more reddish. We catch them in both “dead-falls” and 
steel-traps, baited with fresh fish; though they will take 
also muskrat, partridge, and red squirrels. They are not 
very plenty about here. Their skins are worth $5.00 to 
$6.00. 
OTTER (Lutra Canadensis Sab.). I estimate the weight 
of a good-sized Otter at thirty pounds; their average 
weight is twenty-five to thirty pounds. They live on fish 
and muskrat. They dive down, and then rise into the 
passage way of the muskrat house, so as to push their 
jaws into the house and catch the muskrat, unless, as is 
sometimes the case, the muskrat has a second passage to 
escape through. The otter has no house, but lives in 
holes in the banks of streams, and in hollow logs, and 
under roots. His hind-foot is partially webbed 3 I dont 
_ remember about his fore-foot. He dives and chases fish 
-~ under water. I saw one do this, and then shot him. He 
seems to like to slide instead of walking down a slope, 
3 to have certain places for voiding his exere- 
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TY CaSCIi” 
