170 
FOREST AND STREAM 
an article on mink breeding was published 
in Forest and Stream. At the time it ex¬ 
cited not a little interest, but time passed 
and the matter was forgotten, though the 
article was quoted in Coues’ “Fur-Bearing 
Animals,” and is still often referred to. 
Black foxes and cross foxes are unusual 
color phases of the red fox, and occasionally 
in a litter of red foxes one or two young of 
these colors are found. The silver foxes 
are rare and beautiful, and bring very high 
prices. On the other hand, fox fur is not 
at all durable. The long hairs readily 
break off, while the under fur tends to 
mat and lose its beauty. 
For a number of years the humble skunk 
has been bred in a small way, and we are 
told that now the number of skunk breed¬ 
ers in this country is greater than of all 
other breeders of fur-bearers combined. 
Skunks are readily tamed, and easily man¬ 
aged. They tend to hibernate—or at least 
remain in their dens—during the severe 
cold of winter, when they need no food. 
The fur is handsome when new, but after 
a time fades and becomes sunburnt. The 
average price for the best skunk skins in 
New York during the past twelve years 
was three dollars. 
Besides those mentioned, other species of 
fur-bearers may be bred, but much more 
remains to be learned about them before 
the amateur takes hold of them. The mar¬ 
ten, fisher, otter, blue fox, raccoon and 
beaver have all been tried, and may pos¬ 
sibly all give good results. ■ Ned Dearborn 
has been successful in breeding marten. 
He says that they bear confinement well, 
and are not difficult to tame. And they 
have been bred in several other places. The 
average quotations for the best grade mar¬ 
ten skins for the past dozen years is about 
twenty dollars. 
HE fisher, another big weasel, weighs 
about as much as a red fox, but does 
not at all suggest a fox, as it has 
short legs. Known also as black cat and 
pekan, it is to some extent a tree climber. 
It has a beautiful and quite durable fur, 
the average price of which for the past 
dozen years is about twenty dollars. 
Not long ago a pair of otters reared a 
litter of young in the National Zoological 
Park at Washington, and it is said that a 
species found in Asia has been trained to 
catch fish for its master. The fur of the 
otter is very durable and very handsome. 
Good skins are worth about twenty dollars. 
On some of the Alaska islands experi¬ 
ments have been made—and with fairly 
good results—in breeding the blue fox. In 
small enclosures it has not yet been found 
to do well, though in its home in the ex¬ 
treme Northwest it breeds readily. The 
pelts sell for about forty-four dollars. 
In raising beaver in captivity some dif¬ 
ficulty might be found in providing them 
with food, which consists largely of the 
tender bark of the branches of trees like 
the aspen, cottonwood, poplar, alder and 
willow. Nevertheless, beaver are easily 
handled and become tame and friendly. 
The beaver might almost be called the 
maker of western American history, for it 
was in search of the skins of this animal 
that the first trappers and traders spread 
themselves over the western country. The 
raccoon is probably easily reared, but not 
very much is known about it. For otter, 
beavers and raccoon running water is re¬ 
quired, and an abundance of plant life for 
the beaver. 
HE enclosures described in the Year 
Book are small and inexpensive. How¬ 
ever, they must be strong enough to 
absolutely hold the animals; must have 
water and shade, and should be set some¬ 
what apart and protected from the public, 
since some species are nervous and easily 
frightened. Except for the beaver—and 
for the otter, which lives largely on fish or 
birds—the ordinary scrapings from the 
plates of the table would do for most of 
the animals in question. Milk, bread, 
I. The Fretful Porcupine. 
PORTSMEN-NATURALISTS have 
penned page after page to tell of suc¬ 
cess in the field; volumes have been 
written in describing how the crafty hunter 
has foiled the cunningest of animals. But 
little has been said about the other side of 
the case. The countless instances where 
the creatures of the wilds have made a 
fool of the hunter have been somewhat ig- 
Have You Tried to Shake One Out? 
nored in forest lore. Every man who has 
spent some years afield can recall, and 
with no little pleasure, times without num¬ 
ber when he pitted his intelligence against 
the cunning of some dumb beast—and the 
dumb beast won. Such experiences add not 
a little to the pleasure of life in the open, 
and of studying the wild things in the 
woods and fields. Forest and Stream will 
present a series of incidents of this kind, 
of which the following is the first. 
An ordinary specimen of the humble 
porcupine once gave a young hunter one 
of the most uncomfortable few moments 
of his life. The animal was discovered 
on the ground and a desire for his photo¬ 
crackers and mush will support them well. 
A §reat danger in the case of all is that 
they will be overfed and made fat. This, 
not only interferes with breeding, but en¬ 
courages disease. 
Dr. Dearborn is conducting a fur-farm 
for the Government on a large scale at 
Keeseville, New York, in the Adirondaeks, 
and the results of his experiments will be 
watched with interest. Readers of Forest 
and Stream who wish to secure his paper 
can obtain it without cost from the Division, 
of Publications in the Department of Agri¬ 
culture, Washington, D. C., by applying for 
“Fur Farming as a Side Line,” Year Book 
Separate No. 693. 
graph at once developed. But “porky” did 
not like the looks of the camera, and so 
straightway started to climb the slim sap¬ 
ling under which he was feeding, never 
stopping until he reached the top. There 
was nothing to do but to shake him out, 
and to accomplish this one of the two pho¬ 
tographer-hunters shinned up the almost 
branchless trunk nearly to his perch. 
The fifteen-foot fall that porky risked 
did him no harm, and hardly had he struck 
the ground when he was on his way up 
the tree again, quills bristling. The human 
climber had a sudden desire to set foot 
on Mother Earth, but the rocky ground 
below did not look like a comfortable place 
to land, and there was no way to descend 
by the natural route—down the tree—with¬ 
out coming in contact with the upward 
bound porcupine. The man on the ground 
was appealed to, but he saw the humor of 
the situation and not until the nose of the 
animal and the hunter’s feet were in jux¬ 
taposition did he condescend to poke the 
animal from the tree with a long stick. 
Then the “hedgehog” was tethered with 
a cord, and the camera got in its deadly 
work. 
T HERE is also the case of the porcu¬ 
pine that played possum. Two men 
on a trout fishing trip in the forests 
of Vermont were settling down for the 
night when one of the mammals was seen 
making its way along a few rods distant. 
The nearby camp showed abundant evi¬ 
dences of the nuisance the rodent was 
committing through its habit of gnawing 
wood. So one of the anglers started in 
pursuit of the moving form. A sharp blow 
on the head, and Mr. Porcupine went 
through the motions of giving up the ghost. 
His assailant left the still form lying on 
its back with the remark: Take that! and 
I guess you’ll be there in the morning. 
But when, armed with a knife, the angler- 
slayer went out to bring in the head so 
he could present it for a bounty, he found 
not even a drop of blood remaining to 
mark the scene of the supposed slaughter. 
The animal had revived and stolen away 
in the night. 
THE HUNTED FOILS THE HUNTER 
YOUR OWN ADVENTURES PROBABLY INCLUDE 
SOME WHERE THE WILY ANIMAL OUTWITTED YOU 
By GEORGE L. KIRK. 
