Many beasts of prey will hide or bury a kill and come back to it later for several more meals. In fact the wolverine, one of the mink’s close relatives, will do this. However, the mink actually collects a considerable store of food during periods of good hunting and caches it away against time of need. Caches will often consist of larger animals, such as muskrats and ducks, laid neatly away under an overhanging bank. Since these stores are highly perishable, this is mostly a cold weather practice. The mink is not normally a carrion eater. A characteristic of the weasel family is the occurrence of anal glands which secrete a liquid having a powerful odor. The skunks are best known in this respect. In my opinion the mink and weasel both release an odor which, by comparison, makes the skunk’s “almost nice.” The one saving grace in their case is that the odor soon evaporates, while that released by the skunks retains its strength for a long time, and regains much of the original potency with every rain. Like the skunks, these animals use the disagreeable odor as a defensive weapon. It no doubt has other uses too, such as identifying the individual and its territory to other animals of the same species. Considering the weasel family as a group, it becomes apparent that here is a rather large number of species, all closely related, yet having widely divergent habits. For instance, the marten is as much at home in trees as is the squirrel; the otter can catch fish with ease; and the badger is able to dig better than even the ground squirrels and spends much of its life underground. In the same way, the group varies widely in temperament. At one end of the scale stands the wolverine, surly and defiant; at the other are the marten and otter, playful and even affectionate. The mink might be classified as nervous and irritable. There seems in its temperament to be an actual blood lust. When the mood is upon it, it will continue to kill even when a human is close by. I have seen a mink continue to slaughter a flock of ducks even as I was attempting to drive it away. A mink cornered is a creature to reckon with; there are few animals its size that are so courageous. [Illustration: mink] As might be suspected, such wildly fierce creatures make poor parents. The females sometimes desert the young while they are still too small to make their own way. Yet this, after all, is but a human criticism. Who is to condemn an animal which Nature has allowed to exist under conditions that would have eliminated a more amicable species? Short-tailed weasel (ermine) _Mustela erminea_ (Latin: weasel ... from the fur ermine) Range: From northern Greenland south to northern United States with one extension south into Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico. To be expected in northern Arizona. [Illustration: Habitat map] Habitat: Generally found in forests of the Transition Life Zone and higher. It will often be found in the Arctic Zone.