The fur market has always been a good market. It has grown firmer and stronger from year to year, while the prices for furs have been advancing steadily and rapidly with the growing demand for furs in Europe and America, and with the general increasing scarcity of all fur-bearing animals. Mink fur advanced about fifty per cent. during the last two seasons, and there is every reason to believe that the mink fur in Louisiana will advance to about six dollars within the coming three years. The minks caught in Louisiana last season were sold at an average price of three dollars. [Illustration: Resting in a Warm Place. Notice the Long Body and Its Shape.] [Illustration: In a Position to Jump. Notice the Long Tail.] Fur-bearing animals are becoming scarce where they were once so plentiful, and, like the buffaloes that roamed this country in such great numbers, they will soon, many of them, become extinct if the present rate of trapping continues to obtain in America. Already certain fur animals are almost trapped out and are rare. Even the alligator, which was so plentiful a few years ago in the swamps of Louisiana, is hardly sought after any more for its hide because of its scarcity. The laws enacted by the various State legislatures for the protection of fur-bearing animals, in fact, offer no protection; for most furs caught out of season have no market value, and for that reason are not caught. In Louisiana a trapper has to procure a hunting license if he wishes to carry a gun while trapping, which license costs only one dollar and is good for one season only. Such a low license, while it may bring a large revenue to the State, clearly has no element of protection in it. On the contrary, it is a truth that it stimulates both hunting and trapping, as there were more trappers in Louisiana last season than before the law requiring this license came into effect. Every trapper procures a hunting license whether he carries a gun or not, and most trappers believe the law requires them to have this license to trap. Whatever is being done for the protection of fur-bearing animals in Louisiana, the fact remains that they are fast disappearing. Old and experienced trappers will tell you that minks were very difficult to trap last season as compared with the seasons of a few years ago, when they could be so easily trapped in dead-falls. Raccoons, too, which were so numerous in the rear of old cornfields during the trapping seasons, have diminished at a surprising rate within the last three years. [Illustration: A Female of Two Years.]