point or end of an island, and the next best place is under bridges where the approaches have been filled in with stones or logs; there are other places not so good, such as stone piles, heaps of fence rails, hollow logs, under large stumps, and have even found them under snow banks where I knew there were no holes at all.

The principal food of the mink is fish, birds and their eggs, frogs, mice and small snails, and have had them partly eat muskrat while in my traps. I do not know whether he can kill a muskrat or not, never having seen him do it. No doubt there are many other things upon which he feeds of which I do not know, but these are the principal ones.

The mink is an animal of peculiar habits, sometimes remaining near his burrow for weeks at a time, and then suddenly disappearing and not returning for as much as seven or eight days, and all this time he is roving around in search of food, running all night and lodging in the best hole he can find when daybreak comes, and can often be seen in early morning or in evening at dusk.

LOOKING FOR FOOD.

The mink is not so hard to trap if you know his habits; when you find he has left his burrow do not take up your trap, for he will surely be back in a few days; when you come to a place where a mink has laid up for the day (that is, in a temporary burrow), do not trap on the route he has already traveled, for when he comes out he will go straight on just as if he had just looked in and come out, but set traps and bait; when he comes out he will be hungry and is sure to be your mink.

GOOD SIGNS.

In going from place to place mink often travel over the same route, as between two swamps or ponds, and at times there is a well defined runway through the grass; this habit can be studied in winter when snow is deep, and also when swimming from the mainland to an island or from one island to another; they will nearly always land in the same place. Another thing, when finding a burrow look around, and if you find his dung heap you may be sure he lives in that hole; minks' dung can be told by mice hair and other remains, and if he is feeding on fish altogether looks the color of silver or the scales of fish.

I have had a world of experience trapping but very limited at catching, says an Arkansas trapper, yet plenty of both to be fully capable of solving the question as to whether or not mink are afraid of the scent of iron. It is simply this. Some mink are positively afraid of it and some are positively not so. The experience with one mink that walks into the properly concealed trap and the other old fellow who makes the short but invariable curve around the same properly concealed trap is positive proof of this, and few if any experienced trappers have not had this experience. Either use a scent the mink likes or boil your traps in ashes. Clean, wipe and keep dry, and you have a better chance on land at both kinds of mink.

My favorite water set for mink is as follows: Roll a good sized log (the longer and larger the better) to within six inches of the water's edge of a stream, pond, or lake, leaving a strip of land about six inches deep, allowing water to come in and touch log. Throw mud you remove far away. Don't step on or leave finger or paddle prints on your strip of land, which is certain to become a mink path.

As soon as tracks indicate this, from land side step on top of log and place trap in the place you have made and parallel with log, allowing water to cover well. Staple to log low down and under water between trap and log, or if you desire to use sliding pole, place upper end of same under log at this same prepared place and under water. This log is better than the same set at root of tree, rock, or stump, for the reason of its convenience to stand or kneel on and avoid leaving sign while making set, and because when mink reaches middle of his narrow path he does not like to back out, take deep water, or climb over the log.

Should he have any suspicions, should he jump clear of your little water neck, make wider and place two traps or use the same width trap in soft mud at either edge, and when he jumps he will land deep in your trap. I caught the largest mink I ever saw with the trap in mud at edge this way and he pulled the staple and took the trap, but I found him the same day and the trap, a Newhouse No. 1, had him by the hind leg above the hock. The old fellow had been jumping my little neck of water, so I fixed the trap to his convenience and he lit in it hard.

CHAPTER III.
SIZE AND CARE OF SKINS.

Mink hides handled right bring from a fourth to a half more in market than the same hides handled indifferently, says an old Iowa trapper and buyer. Now I will state it more plainly. Take a medium sized mink, a male one if handled right will be, when stretched properly, from 20 to 22 inches long, and from 3 1/2 to 4 inches wide at the tail, tapering gradually to the nose.

Take the same hide, stretch it over a shingle tapered to a point being 6 or 8 inches wide at base and a foot long, you will get just half as much for it as the first one.

I have bought small mink hides about 8 inches long and 6 inches wide at the base--just as you would stretch a muskrat. Take the same hide, stretch it 15 or 18 inches long, and you have added 25 per cent. to the value of the hide. I shipped two large mink hide a short while ago. They were near of a size and color as could be. One was about 12 inches long, the other about 22 inches and well handled otherwise. One brought 100 per cent. more than the other.

NICELY HANDLED WISCONSIN SKINS.

I take common laths heavy as I can get, saw them in two in the center, plane them smooth, taper the ends of the two round the edges, make a tapering center piece, stretch the hide over the two outside pieces. Draw the hide down as far as you possibly can. See that the nose does not slip off the end of the boards. Now tack the hide on each side of the tail, putting in 4 tacks, allowing room for your center piece.

Now you are ready for your center piece. Insert it at the bottom, press it through gradually, but be careful not to tear the hide from the tacks that you have already driven in. The center piece will not always go through the full length. The size of the mink regulates that part of it. One must have different sizes of boards or laths. Now turn your hide over, pull down the legs of the mink as tight as you can and tack, using several tacks. I use large tacks No. 12 three-quarters of an inch long, being sharp as needles.

Most trappers use the one piece stretching board, as they claim the three piece too much trouble. If the one piece is carefully made, planed on both sides, and about three-eighths inch thick, it is a good board. A one fourth board after being planed on both sides is very good.

In this country there are two varieties, which some naturalists have supposed were distinct species; one small, dark-colored, common in the Northern and Eastern States and Canada; the other larger, with lighter-colored, coarser and less valuable fur, common in the Western and Southern States. The dark-colored variety measures from eleven to eighteen inches in length from the nose to the root of the tail, and has a tail from six to ten inches in length.

SOME PRIME N. E. SKINS.

The