Sometimes the otter travels for miles on land, and if daylight surprises him there he will hunt shelter for the day in any convenient hole. A trap set in it, and the entrance closed with a boulder is usually the easiest way to get his skin.
As the animal is especially destructive in trout streams the sportsman gunner will always do a great favor to the disciple of the rod when he closes the career of one of these four-footed poachers.
THE MINK
THE mink track presents some similarity to those of the marten and the black-footed ferret, but it is much smaller than that of the marten, and the toe-marks are even more prominent than those of the ferret, for which it might be mistaken at times if it were not that the form of the trails is different. The mink never travels for long distances without showing at least three tracks plainly in the jump-picture, while the ferret practically never does this. The track of the ferret is found near ice-bound streams only when it crosses them to reach other hunting-grounds, while the mink, being almost as skilful at catching fish as the otter, generally travels along a stream's course.
In destructiveness to small game the mink is perhaps only equaled by the domestic cat, which, in remote districts, he resembles in the habit of hunting at all hours of the day.
MINK. (LESS THAN ONE-HALF NATURAL SIZE)
(A) Left front-track. (B) Hind-tracks (a characteristic track picture). (1) Ordinary jump. (2) Easy running. (3) Running.