MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 1G7 



viduals at the same locality : " When we begin to study this species, we 

 soon find a very great variety in color, not only between the summer and 

 winter specimens, but between winter skins themselves, that are all in the 

 highest condition. Whilst they all coincide in what may be called typical 

 marks, such as color of legs, tail, and especially ears, all of which have a 

 very pale but conspicuous rim or border, they vary much in color of J 

 some having black, others faces so pale as to be nearly white, and the pale 

 faces have a lighter brown color, and the orange throat much less vivid." 

 Of seven skins described by this gentleman in detail, two " are nearly uni- 

 form mahogany brown " from the nose to the tail ; the other five, though 

 varying somewhat among themselves, are generally lighter, with much 

 lighter faces, and the orange spot on the throat very bright, " almost ful- 

 vous." He adds that the skins from "Newfoundland and Labrador are 

 much finer, darker in color, and more lustrous in pelage" than those from 

 Nova Scotia. 



Through the kindness of several of the fur-dealers of Boston I have had 

 an opportunity to make a careful comparison of scores of skins of the Siberian 

 sable from Ruisia with as large a series from the Territory of Hudson's 

 Bay. The differences between them, although through the whims of 

 fashion producing considerable difference in the mercantile value of the 

 skins, are really quite slight. The fur of the Hudson's Bay skins is a 

 little coarser, and the color slightly more rufous, with much fewer of 

 the white-tipped hairs that in the Siberian skins are sometimes suf- 

 ficiently numerous to give them a slight grayish cast, and which is con- 

 sidered to greatly increase their value. As one of the. dealers practically 

 remarked, they differ no more than the horses raised in Pennsylvania do 

 from those bred in Massachusetts. Some of the skins of both varieties 

 had tails much shorter than the average, showing the unreliability of this 

 character. In a few instances this member was distinctly tipped with 

 white, in both the Hudson's Bay and Siberian skins. 



In the light of the now well-substantiated facts of a wide range of 

 seasonal and intergrading, inconstant individual variation, it seems to me 

 to be beyond reasonable doubt that, as I have already stated, the mar- 

 tens and sables, at least all thus far described, belong to a single circum- 

 polar species, with possibly two or more well-marked and tolerably constant 

 continental races. 



8. Putorius vulgaris Crv. (Mustela vulgaris Linn. ; Putorius 

 pusillus And. and Bach.) Least Weasel. Rather rare. Far less 

 numerous than the next. 



9. Putorius ermineus Civ. (Mustela erminea Linn. ; Putorius 

 noveboraceusis Ue Kay; Mustela Richardsonii and M. Cicogn 



