Evening star., 1934-11-04
STUFFED SEA MINK
SPECIMEN FOUND
Animal, Now Extinct, Once
Inhabited Coast of
New England:
BY THOMAS r. HENRY.

A single stuffed specimen of the
sea mink-semi-legendary animal Of
the Northern New England Coast,
which became extinct about the time
of the Civil War and since has been
known only by fragments of jaws
found in shell heaps-has been found
by National Park Service rangers in
the Arcadia National Park, Maine.
Apparently this is the sole speci-
men in existence Of a creature which
was once very abundant, which was
about 80 per cent larger than the
average mink, but which was hunted
down so ruthlessly for its fur that it
disappeared completely in few years.
The possibility Of finding one of these
specimens preserved in some local
home or museum long has been an
outstanding lure for naturalists.
Relentlessly Hunted.
The creature was hunted with dogs,
Drained with pickaxes and crowbars
and driven from its lairs in the rocks
by shotguns loaded with pepper or
by the smoke of birthstone.
This is perhaps the outstanding find
to date in the efforts of the National
Park Service to trace the history of
the wild life in the various areas un-
der its control.
The earliest Virginia natural his
tory-a description of its bird life
written more than 800 years ago
has been discovered by DR. Harold
c. Bryant, chief naturalist of the Ma
tional Park Service.
1t was written by william Strachey,
one of the jamestown coloniSts, about
the year 1912, and gives strange pic
ture of the scenes witnessed by the
first white settlers in this part of
North America.
The old bird list is Of special in
terest to the National Park Service
because of the connection with James,
town and naturalist developments in
the Colonial National Monument.
Account by Strachey.
Strachey's account follows:
Likewise, as they have fruicts and
beasts, SO have they fowle. and that
great store. OF brides, the eagle is
the greatest devourer, and many of
them there: there be divers sortes of
hawkes., sparhawkes, laneretts. gos-
hawkes., falcons, and ospreys; I
brought home from thence this yeare
myself, falcon, and a tassell, the
one sent by Sir Thomas Dale to his
highness the Prince, and the other
was presented to the Earle of SAILS
burye, faire ones. What the prowf of
them male be, I have not learned,
they prey most upon fish.
Turkeys there be great store, wild
in the woods, like phesants in Eng
land, forty in company. as big as
our tame here. and vt is an excellent
fowle, and SO passing good meat, as
l maye well sale, vt is the best of any
kind of flesh which I have ever yet
eaten there.
"Partridges there are little bigger
than our quailes! have knowne of
our men to have killed them with their
small shott, sometimes from of a
tree five or six at shoot.
Cranes, white and grey; herons.
both grey and white: woosells. or
black byrds. with redd shoulders:
thrushes, and divers sorts of small
byrdes. some carnation, some blew.
and some other straunge kyndes, to US
unknowne by name.
In winter there are great store of
swannes, geese, brants, duck, wideeon.
dottreU, oxeyes, mallard. teale shell
brakes. and divers diving fowles and
OF all these sortes, that abundance.
as l dare avowe vt, no country in the
world may have more.
Like East Indian "Parratts."
"Parakitoes have scene mamie in
the winter. and knowne divers killed,
yet be they 4 fowle most swift of
wing, their winges and breasts are of
a greenish cullour. with forked tayles.
their heades, some crymsen, some
yelloWe, some orange -tawny. very
beautiful. Some of our colonie who
have scene of the East Indian parratts.
af1rme how they are like to that
kynd. which hath given us somewhat
the more hope of the nerenes of the
South Sea, these parratts, by all
probability, like enough to come from
some OF the countryes upon that sea.
"A kind of wood-pidgeon we see in
the winter time, and of them such
nomberS, as I should drawe (from our
homelings here, such who have scene,
peradventure, scarce one more than in
the marketD the credit of my relation
concerning all the other in question,
yf I should expresse what extended
flocks and how mamie thousands in
one flock, I have scene in one dale,
wondering Il must confesse) at their
flight. when, like so many thickned
clowdes, they (having fled to the nor
ward in the dayetyme) retourne againe
more sowardly towards night to their
roust; but there be mamie hundred
witnesses, who male convince this my
report, yf herein vt testifieth an
untruth."