The mink by preference is a forest animal, living along the wooded bottom-lands of rivers or the thicket-grown borders of small streams, where the rich vegetation gives abundance of shelter and at the same time attracts a wealth of small mammals and birds on which it may prey. From these secure coverts it wanders through the surrounding country at night, visiting many chicken-houses on farms and leaving devastation behind. It is persistent and bold in such forays and in locations near its haunts great care must be exercised to guard against it. Minks have repeatedly raided the enclosures of the National Zoological Park in Washington. Now and then, on the banks of some wild stream, one will try to appropriate the catch lying at the very feet of a lone fisherman. A naturalist fishing on a stream in northern Canada, seeing a mink making free with his catch, set a small steel trap on the bare ground, and holding the attached chain in one hand raised and slowly drew toward him the fish upon which the mink was feeding. The mink, without hesitation, followed the fish and was caught in the trap. An abundance of food may modify the preference of the mink for wooded or partly wooded country. The marshy and treeless tundra lying near sea-level in the triangle between the coast of Bering Sea, and the lower parts of the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers offers such an attractive situation differing from their usual haunts. The sluggish streams and numberless ponds abound with small fish four to five inches long. Minks swarm in this area to such an extent that the Eskimos who inhabit the district are known among the natives of the surrounding region as the “mink people.” Steel traps are used there, but a primitive method is even more successful. A wicker fence is built across a narrow stream and a small fyke fish-trap placed in it. In swimming along the stream minks pass into the trap like fish, and I knew of from 10 to 15 being thus taken in one day. During my residence in that region from 10,000 to 15,000 mink skins were caught in this tundra district annually, and the supply appeared to be inexhaustible. With the growing occupation of the continent and the increasing demand for furs, however, the numbers of the mink must surely decrease. To forestall the shortage of furs that seems imminent, efforts are now being made to establish fur farming to replace the declining supply of wild furs with those grown under domestication. The mink appears to be well adapted to successful breeding in captivity. The main question to solve is the relation of the cost of caring for the animals to the value of its pelt in the market. =THE MARTEN, OR AMERICAN SABLE= (=Martes americana= and its relatives) (_For illustration, see page 555_)