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WAYS OF THE AMERICAN MINK How a Handsome Fur Animal Lives and Breeds Prices for Pelts Are High. Trappers throughout all America in recent seasons have been seeking mink as never before. Why? Because their pelts never brought the prices that they have for the1 past year or to. " Tliis is also true of many other fur-bearers, and trappers are working hard. The American mink, is one of the most widely known and valuable fur-bearer of the weasel family, even though the marten, skunk and weasel belong to the same household. Few animals are better adapted to a double mode of life than the mink, whether found on the plains of the west or the more high and rocky portions. This animal is equally at home searching thickets and lowland forests for food or hunting it with otter-like skill iH-ueatli the water. It is a restless animal, active at all times, yet mainly at night. Mink usually have dens, yet the males especially are given to wandering widely for so small an animal, hunting over several square miles, passing from one stream or body of water to another. They travel most in fall and again during mating season. Mink are solitary, their companionship with one another being only during mating season. The dens are usually in a safe and convenient places, such as u hole in the bank made by muskrats or other animals, a hollow log or stump, etc. The nest is generally made of grass and leaves, lined with feathers, hair and other soft material. The number in a litter varies from four to ten, or per-. haps inore. The young are born during April or May. They breed but once a year. Mink pelts shortly after the Civil War were worth 0. or thereabouts for best. Price a few years later dropped to about 50 cents, and remained low-throughout the eighties. Shortly after 1900 values increased wonderfully until 1507. when they were worth to 8. Price held up well for a few years and then receded, until last year, when they again attained a high value some .0 each. The average Iowa professional trapper does not begin until the fur and pelt is prime, but when that time comes his traps are strung, along miles of streairts, ponds and lakes where mink travel. Some: years ago, before trappers became so numerous, the average yearly catch was about fifty, the best year being seventy-two. Of late years the catch was not so large, owing to the fact that the animals were not so numerous. The decreased catch last, season, however, did not mean any less money, for prices were so high that the total amount re-ifiveil for the thirty-odd mink was equal to the former larger catches. . Tin? mink trapper, like most other professional ones, whether on a fishing trip, hunting or working in the field, was always on the lookout for mink and other fur-bearing animal sign. Experienced trappers know from previous years observations that where mink tracks were seen during the slimmer and early fall that such was a likely locality lo catch mink when pelts Income in marketable condition. In some places, such as the Rocky Mountain streams, where there is little sand or mud. It is hard to see tracks. Dropnings on stones, logs, etc., will reveal to the careful observer where mink are nesting. The mink of the two northern tier of counties In Iowa average larger than in other parts of the state. Dakota and southern Canada mink west of the. Red River of the North and west to the Rockies nr. large, male mink weighing four p;itiils and more quite frequently. Mink in the mountain regions that weigh three pounds are usually considered birge. The mountain mink is usually darker and finer furred than those found In the open, and generally worth fully as ininh as the larger specimen. Be it remembered that color has considerable jo do with determining the value of uimk. AH Outdoors.
