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EXPERIENCE WITH A WEASEL
I am a boy sixteen years of age and live on a farm five miles from the nearest town.
My brother and I had two traps set at the foot of an old rotten stump about two yards from the river's edge. I had shot a rabbit and dragged it through the woods to the set, and placed it just back of the traps. As I had seen many mink tracks around there I thought that I could get them with this set. About four o'clock we started to go to see to our line of traps, which was about six sets. Just as we got to the set for mink I discovered a large white weasel caught by the two back legs, with one in each trap. I took a stick and rapped the weasel on the head and freed it from the traps, and was just going to put it in my game bag when my brother, who was watching me all the while says, "Your weasel is coming back to life again." I grabbed it by the back legs and slammed it against the stump and took it by the nape of the neck to make sure it was dead. It grabbed my finger and bit it and slipped out of my hands and ran under a pile of brush. It was getting dark and we could not see very well, so I started to un-pile the brush while my brother watched with a club. It got away and as it was two dark to follow it up we let it go; but now I will know not to be too quick in freeing them from the traps.
We have skunks, 'coons, mink, weasels, muskrats and badgers but the muskrats and weasels are more plentiful than the rest. But they are all scarce, because the people around here try to get them before their neighbors.
Royal J. P. Gauthier.
Pennington County, Minnesota.
Fur, News. Fur News, January 1916.
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