1903.
June 19
(No 3)
of the animal's toe-pads and even claws to dim
impressions evidently blurred by wind or rain. As nearly as
I could judge all the tracks must have been made by a
single Mink or if by more than one at least by animals
of nearly the same size and age. They extended back from
the water as far as the sand was sufficiently loose to
enable them to be traced.
  Having thus assured myself that a Mink or Minks
had been raiding the colony of Sand Martins I next looked
for remains of the birds. I soon found those of at least
six Swallows scattered over the sandy flat near the edge
of the water while further back, in a shallow eave beneath
a huge clod of turf which had fallen from the bank
above, the Minks had eaten at least as many more. In
most of the different instances they had left only a pile of
feathers with perhaps the terminal joint of a wing but
I took from beneath the clod the entire head wings and
feet of one Swallow still joined together by skin and
cleanly-picked bones (including the sternum) and the wings
bill and one leg of another similar connected by skin
but with all the bones (including the skull) save those in 
the wing and leg missing. Both of these two birds last
mentioned were adults but all the other remains were
unmistakeably those of young well-grown and covered with
sprouting feathers of the first or natal plumage.
  Evidently the Mink or Minks had feasted long and
sumptuously on this unfortunate colony of Sand Swallows, no
doubt eating on the spot or carrying off to most distant retreats
practically all the young as well as at least a few
of their parents. Such, at all events, would seem to be
the plain inference from the circumstantial evidence above recorded.