oj the Mackenzie River District. 31 



as is evident from an inspection of the soles of its feet, which are 

 densely covered with hair. The head is broad and rounded, and 

 the nose not so acute as in members of the genus Mustela. The 

 eyes are small and far apart, the ears low and rounded, thickly 

 covered on the outside with a long soft far which nearly conceals 

 them. The whiskers are comparatively short, stiff, and not 

 numerous ; and there are over each eye sparse tufts of similar 

 hairs. 



The body is long and stout, of great muscular power, and 



formed more for strength than activity. The feet are larger in 

 proportion than those of any other species of the sub-family Mar- 

 tinge, and are armed with strong claws, well curved and over 

 an inch in length. 



The skin which I propose now to describe is that of a female 

 killed in last March. It is that of an average sized animal, whose 

 coloration also is of the ordinary shades, and may be accepted 

 with great propriety as a type of the species as found in this dis- 

 trict. The pelage in winter is formed of a soft woolly under-fur, 

 tolerably fine and about an inch deep and overlaid by larger and 

 coarser hairs, which are about 3 inches long on the rump, but 

 shortening gradually towards the head where they measure only 

 half an inch. The feet are large and broad — the hind feet larger than 

 the fore feet — and all densely covered with mingled fur and hair 

 about f of an inch in depth. The balls of the toes are naked, but 

 from the thickness of the covering's of the feet, they leave no impres- 

 sion upon the snow. By careful examination three additional small 

 bare pads will be discovered on each foot. The nails are strong, 

 sharp, well curved, white, and upwards of an inch in length, those 

 of the fore feet being, if anything, the stronger, though there is 

 little difference either in length or shortness. Comparatively 

 speaking the tail is rather short, very bushy, particularly towards 

 the end, which has the appearance as if a piece were cut off. The 

 fur covering it is of the same kind as that on the body, but the 

 under fur is not so thick, and there are more of the coarse hairs 

 which are here from 5 inches long at the root to 6 at the tip. 

 The color of the fur varies much according to the season and age. 

 The younger animals are invariably darker in the shadings than 

 the old, which exhibit more of the grey markings. In the speci- 

 men under consideration, the back from the nape of the neck to 

 the rump is a dark blackish brown perceptibly lighter on the 



