Among the natives of Alaska all weasels are looked upon with great respect on account of their prowess as hunters. I found this feeling peculiarly strong among the Eskimos, whose existence for ages has depended so largely on the products of the chase. Among them the capture of a weasel meant good luck to the hunter, and to take the rarer least weasel was considered a happy omen. The head and entire skin of the least weasel was highly prized for wearing as an amulet or fetich. Young men eagerly purchased them, paying the full value of a prime marten skin in order to wear them as a personal adornment, that they might thus become endowed with the hunting prowess of this fierce little carnivore. Fathers often bought them to attach to the belts of their small sons, so that the youthful hunters might become imbued with the spirit of this “little chief” among mammals. =THE AMERICAN MINK= (=Mustela vison= and its relatives) (_For illustration, see page 555_) In the American mink we have one of the most widely known and valuable fur-bearers of the weasel family. It is a long-bodied animal, but more heavily proportioned than the weasel, and attains a weight of from one and one-half to more than two pounds. It has short legs and walks slowly and rather clumsily with the back arched. When desiring to travel rapidly it moves in a series of rapid easy bounds which it appears able to continue tirelessly. [Illustration: THE TRACK OF A FOX The size, the small pads, and the set of all feet nearly in one line are strong features, as also is the tail touch.] The minks form a small group of species circumpolar in distribution, and well known in Europe, northern Asia, and in North America. The European animal is closely similar to the North American species and all have the same amphibious habits. The American minks include several different geographic races, which are distributed over all the northern part of the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the mouths of the Yukon and Mackenzie Rivers to the Gulf coast in the United States. They are absent from the arid Southwestern States. Few species are more perfectly adapted to a double mode of life than the mink. It is equally at home slyly searching thickets and bottom-land forests for prey or seeking it with otter-like prowess beneath the water. It is a restless animal, active both by day and by night, although mainly nocturnal. While usually having definite dens to which they return, minks wander widely and for so small an animal hunt over a large territory and pass from one body of water to another. Their wanderings are most pronounced in fall and again during the mating in spring. They are solitary, their companionship with one another not outliving the mating period.