r the water. It is in these dens that the female and her
offspring spend the summer months, never straying far from home.

The first two weeks of March is the minks' season for mating, and the
young--from four to six--are born about six weeks later. When confined
in enclosures where the diet, water and temperature are similar with
each animal, there is so little difference in the time of mating and
bearing their young, that five or six litters may make their appearance
within twelve hours of each other.

The young are blind from four to five weeks, but are very active and as
playful as kittens. The mother weans them when they are eight or ten
weeks old. At about four weeks the mother begins to feed them meat, and
they learn to suck at it before they have teeth to eat it. The young are
fed by the mother on frogs, fish, mice, etc., until they are three or
four months old, when she leaves them to shift for themselves. The young
soon separate and do their hunting alone. They do not pair and the male
is a rover and "free lover."

Mink are extremely cleanly and as soon as the den becomes foul, the
mother moves the family to some other nest.

MINK BREEDING.--There are a great many readers of the H-T-T who live in
the city, that long for some way to profitably spend their idle time. I
will give a successful way of breeding mink, according to Mr. Boughton's
Guide:

"Wild adult mink are almost untamable, but young ones readily submit to
handling and are easily domesticated. The time to secure young mink is
in May or June when they begin to run with their dams. The streams must
be quietly watched for mink trails, and these, if possible, tracked to
the nest. When they leave the hole, the young ones may be secured, or
they may be dug out. Those who own a breeding stock of mink ask very
high prices for them, but if the aforesaid plan is carried out, it is an
easy matter to get the young wild ones.

"MANAGEMENT OF MINK.--Mink being by nature solitary, wandering animals,
being seldom seen in company except in mating season, it is impossible
to rear them successfully if large numbers are kept together constantly;
therefore, their enclosure should be a large one. The male and the
female should be permitted to be together frequently from the middle of
February until the middle of March. At all other times keep them
entirely separate.

"About this season the mink should be allowed plenty of fine grass,
which they will carry into th