204 
FOURTEENTH REPORT. 
17. Felis rufa Gueldenstaeclt. Red Lynx, Wild Cat. — That wild cats 
still exist in small numbers in the denser tracts of timber and swamps is not 
to be doubted. Altho there is only one record of a bounty being paid 
within the last fifteen years (1910), several more have been seen and killed 
to the writer’s certain knowledge. 
18. Vulpes fulva (Desmarest). Red Fox. — Red foxes are very plentiful 
in the waste pine lands. They live upon rabbits, birds, mice, woodchucks, 
and spermophiles and seldom if ever molest farmers’ poultry, It is not 
probalDle that there will be any decrease in their numbers so long as there 
are such vast areas of waste land where they can live and breed relatively 
unmolested. 
19. Urocyon cinero-argenteus (Schreber). Gray Fox. — This species 
is not so well represented by far as it was a few years ago. Altho a southern 
form, it is found at present almost entirely within or near the large “boreal 
islands” (tamarack and cedar swamps), which furnish it the best protection. 
The writer killed perhaps a dozen of these foxes several years ago, but at 
present one hears of not more than one or two being killed each winter. 
20. Mephitis olida Boitard. Eastern Skunk. — Skunks are found in 
sufficient numbers to furnish remunerative employment to the farmer 
boys who care to employ their spare time during the early winter in hunting 
them. 
21. Taxidea taxus (Schreber). American Badger. — Badgers are still 
quite plentiful in Osceola County. Their presence probably more than 
anything else accounts for the scarcity of woodchucks. When a badger 
starts in pursuit of a woodchuck there is no escape for the latter for the 
badger is by far the better digger. According to local observers, the 
woodchuck is killed and eaten in a very peculiar manner. After killing 
his prey, the badger begins to eat at the posterior end, turning the skin 
back as it proceeds and leaving the skin turned completely inside out 
when the meal is finished. This was told by different men (Allen, Byarn 
and Roberts), and the writer found a skin of a woodchuck, in exactly the 
condition described, at the entrance of a burrow which had evidently 
been raided by a badger. It is said that skunks are destroyed in the same 
manner. 
Badgers have earned the hatred of many people by digging into newly 
made graves. The writer was told (Stieg) that Mr. Charles Angle a former 
sexton of a cemetery two miles west of LeRoy had so much trouble with 
them in this way that he would travel miles to trap one. The writer has 
seen such burrows in graves but supposed they were merely accidental. 
From an interview with Mr. Shafer, of LeRoy, it was learned that it is 
forbidden by law to use poisons in embalming the bodies, and it seems 
that the weak formalin and the glycerine which are used are not sufficiently 
distasteful to discourage an animal possessing the appetite of a badger. 
They are said, not infrequently, to eat vegetation in summer (Roberts). 
(Figs. 9 and 18). 
22. Lutreola vison (Schreber). Northeastern Mink. — The mink is still 
quite common along the Fine River and its tributaries and about many 
of the more inaccessible lakes. Several people find remunerative employ- 
ment. trapping them. They are, however, quite rapidly decreasing in 
numbers. 
23. Putorius noveboracensis Emmons. New York Weasel. — This little 
animal is very plentiful in Osceola County but is seldom seen because of 
the abundance of brush which furnishes hiding places. Many tracks were 
