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JOURNAL OF MAMMALOGY 
trail led to the water at this point, and a walk downstream failed to discover any 
trace of more tracks wherever an opening appeared. 
It is known that the mink is at times a traveler. In the woods the animal did 
not seem to enter into the pursuit of any prey. Pheasant and ruffed grouse were 
abroad but were not common. I found nothing of a kill. A greater portion of 
its trail was made at a walk which we know is a method of slow locomotion for the 
animal. Its usual gait is a series of fast, easy bounds. Was this animal hunting? 
Was hunger stalking the woods and swamps? This happened during the winter 
of 1920, in February, when the snowfall throughout New Hampshire was of 
unusual depth.^ — Edward Charles Hobson, Lowell, Massachusetts. 
THE BADGER AS A SWIMMER 
In the mid-afternoon of August 4, 1920, a badger {Taxidea taxvs taxus) was 
found swimming in the middle of Devils Lake, North Dakota. Mr. T. H. Hubbell 
and I were crossing in a motor-boat from Minnewaukon Bay to Creel Bay when 
we noted the animal in the water a half-mile or more from the north shore, and 
also about a half-mile from the south shore. It was swimming with apparent 
ease toward the north shore, and was making rapid progress. When secured the 
individual proved to be a fully grown female. The specimen is preserved in the 
Museum of Zoology of the University of Michigan. The day had been hot and 
bright — conditions apparently not favorable for the wandering of this species. 
No one in the region, so far as could be learned, had ever before heard of a swim- 
ming badger, and I can find no published reference to such a habit. — N. A. Wood, 
Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich. 
REMAINS OF A FOSSIL PHOCID FROM PLATTSBURG, NEW YORK 
In 1901 the New York State Museum received from Dr. D. S. Kellogg, Platts- 
burg. New York, the tibia of a seal which had been recovered in October of that 
year from the post-glacial clays within the city limits. The bone was found at a 
depth of eleven feet below the surface during the construction of a sewer trench 
on Bailey Avenue. The soil at this locality was said to consist of a layer of sand 
four or five feet thick overlying fine clay. Fossil marine shells, Macoma green- 
landica (Beck), were abundant in the upper part of the layer of clay but none were 
found at the depth of the imbedded bone. 
The specimen has been examined by Mr. Remington Kellogg of the Biological 
Survey and the following statements quoted from a recent letter will indicate 
its affinities. ‘‘A young individual of Cystophora cristata (No. 14013, U. S. N. M.) 
from Newfoundland .... shows a very close approach to the fossil tibia. 
The lower extremity is approximately the same, including the facet for the 
fibula. The curvature of shaft and angle formed by the suture for the epiphysis 
of head, same as in C. cristata.” ’ The shaft of the tibia of the fossil specimen is 
a little thicker in the median region than is the condition in C. cristata. Although 
similar in essential characteristics to the recent specimen with which it was 
compared, it is perhaps best, on account of the fragmentary condition of the 
remains, to record the bone as the left tibia of a fossil phocid near Cystophora 
cristata Erxleb. — Sherman C. Bishop, New York State Museum, Albany, N. Y. 
