The female gives birth to five or six young at about the end of April. If taken young they get to be very tame and become real pets. Richardson saw one in the possession of a Canadian lady who used to carry it about with her in her pocket. It is easily caught in a trap of any kind, but its tenacity of life renders it difficult to shoot. The European mink much resembles the American, except that it is somewhat smaller and its fur is coarser. Upon a large farm in Michigan visited by the writer this summer ran a creek where the chickens, when the trough was dry--and dry it usually was--traveled to get a drink. In the bank of the creek a mink made his home, and not a week passed that one or more hens did not appear in the barnyard crippled or mangled in a manner painful to behold--painful, that is, to the visitor, but not apparently to the farmer, who only said: "It's that darned mink; some day, when I have time, I'll set a trap and catch him," and so went coolly on his way, leaving the poor maimed creatures to drag out a painful existence for days or weeks, hoping that nature would heal the wounds made by the mink. Aside from the lack of thrift thus shown by the farmer--for the hens, when badly mangled, in time succumbed--the inhumane aspect of the case never seemed to strike him. The cultivation of his fields left no time for cultivating the finer feelings of the heart. [Illustration: MINK. 4/11 Life-size. FROM COL. F. NUSSBAUMER & SON. A. W. MUMFORD, PUBLISHER, CHICAGO. COPYRIGHT 1900, BY NATURE STUDY PUB. CO., CHICAGO.] THE NEW SPORT. JOHN WINTHROP SCOTT. In the early days every man and boy knew how to use a gun. It was a necessity of life. It brought in meat for the family. The regular business of every holiday was to go to the woods and kill. The free life of the woods, the pleasure of ranging about for a purpose, and the excitement attending success in bagging game were among their greater pleasures. Now we live in cities mainly. Even the country boy has less regard for the gun. The game and many of the birds and animals that are not game have been killed off, so that country boys now wish to give them a chance for their lives. Probably the worst murderers of songsters and innocent animals are the ignorant city youths who get only a day or two in the woods in a year. Guns have been "improved" to such an extent that whether the gunner has any skill or not everything in sight can be killed because of the rapidity of fire and the number of chances for killing. A gun has been invented which pours a steady stream of rapid fire as long as you hold the trigger. It was invented for killing men on the battlefield; but there are other guns nearly as destructive that are used for "sport."