Home › Volumes › American Animals › Weasels, Otters, Etc.
Mink — Part 2
Images coming soon.
It was raining heavily all the time and there was no wind, so he failed to catch my scent, and for some time continued to examine at a distance of two or three paces without taking alarm. When sitting upright he showed a narrow white line down his throat, broken into a chain of spots between his fore legs. At last, having satisfied his curiosity, he started off along the bank with his head turned to one side, watching the rain-dotted face of the water keenly, perhaps hoping to see the bulging eyes of a frog or a fish rising to break the surface.
Minks combine the habits of the land and water hunters more successfully, perhaps, than any other animal. In warm weather they are fond of exploring wet swamps and low lands, where they find an abundance of frogs and lizards, and dig all sorts of grubs, beetles and earthworms from the black peaty soil and leaf-mould around old weather-beaten stumps and rotten logs.
They are most inveterate nest robbers and mousers, chasing the little blunt-headed furry meadow mice along their runways in the thick grass being their favourite sport.
In April the female fixes herself a cozy nest in some hole among the rocks, or inside a hollow log or stump generally hidden away among flags and bullrushes beside a stream.
The young minks stay with their mother until cold weather, learning to fish and hunt; the frogs, mice and young birds furnish plenty of sport for them while the warm weather lasts, and they seldom wander far, until the sons of the family are as big or bigger than their mother. But the frosty autumn weather makes them restless, and they soon get into the way of going off separately on longer hunting excursions, to be gone several days or a week, perhaps, at a time, no longer returning when tired to sleep together in the same nest where they were born, but camping each alone wherever the fortunes of chase happen to lead them, for a mink is always able to find good sleeping quarters anywhere at a moment's notice.
The mink is not properly either nocturnal or diurnal; when well fed and tired, after a hard chase, he turns in and sleeps until rested, and then yawns and stretches himself and starts out again for another jolly hunt, perfectly indifferent to the time of the day. It may be black rainy midnight or a brilliant October morning: when he wakes, off he goes, hungry and eager for fresh adventures, exploring unknown territory and chasing birds such as he has never seen before, as the Northern cold drives them down in flight before it. His first snowstorm is likely to find him dozens of miles from home. Now and again he runs across other members of his species and the two hunt and fish together for a few days, but they soon part company again in most instances; one, it may be, preferring to follow down along the tidewater creeks after eels, while the other anticipates better fun chasing partridges and squirrels in the upland woods.
While minks are not social animals, they are, I am certain, much less in the way of putting up pitched battles when they meet than are the majority of the woodland folk. Sometimes half a dozen or more old males will gather about some particularly good fishing hole and to all appearances get along perfectly together for weeks.
In winter, when the still waters are frozen, they haunt open rapids and warm springs in the woods, or finding entrance beneath the ice of a closed brook, make extended excursions along the dim buried channel, alternately running beneath the ice and along the brook's border where the falling away of the water has left a narrow strip of unfrozen turf beneath ice and snow. Here they catch small fish and meadow mice, or, tracing the brook's course down to the wider reaches of the river, find larger fish and muskrats to try their strength upon. Water, however, is not essential to the minks' happiness at any season, for they can hunt rabbits all winter long in the snow as successfully as the sable or fisher.
Varieties of the Mink
Northern Mink. Putorius vison (Schreber). Description and range as above.
Southern Mink. P. vison lutreocephalus (Harlan). Length, 28 inches. Larger and lighter, dark chestnut-brown, with white spots below as in the last.
Louisiana Mink. P. vison vulgivagus (Bangs). Smaller and light yellowish-brown, chin and spots on under parts purer white.
Florida Mink. P. lutensis (Bangs). Similar to the last, but still smaller, with longer head.