906 Life-histories of Northern Animals 



"I have also known a Saiiheaux prisoner from Lac la 

 Pluie, banished to Mackenzie River for some crime in the 

 fifties of the last century, capture 39 Martens out of 40 dead- 

 fail traps made by him on a round of a dozen miles, just as the 

 snow fell. That was what he got on his first visit, and the 

 fortieth trap showed that a Marten was trapped but succeeded 

 in getting away. 



"Two hundred Marten skins was the hunt (average) of 

 the best Indian hunters at Fort Liard for several years when 

 these animals were abundant in the early fifties. For output 

 1853, the late William F. Lane (an Irishman) traded 12,000 

 skins of the Marten at Liard, the best trade ever known there. 

 The next year, under Robert Campbell, it yielded over 10,000, 

 and some 2,000 less the next. During the decades of the forties 

 and fifties, the Mackenzie River Marten trade was by far the 

 best obtained before or since. In years of scarcity the trade 

 has not averaged a fifth of those of plenty." 



From these and many parallel facts I conclude that 200 

 Martens, taken in one winter on a 25-mile line of traps, would 

 be a large haul; more, indeed, than the best Marten country 

 could stand. A few years at this rate and the region would 

 be trapped out. The area involved would be a strip 2 or 3 

 miles wide. In other words, if 4 Martens were killed in two 

 or three successive years on each square mile of a region that 

 was thickly populated by the species, it would probably exter- 

 minate them in that locality. From which we may argue that 

 6 Martens to the square mile would be a high rate of popu- 

 lation. I doubt if the number in Manitoba's pine woods 

 to-day is a twentieth of this. 



The species is, indeed, becoming scarcer every year in all 

 the southern parts of its range concerning which I have infor- 

 mation. 



FLucTu- One of the interesting unsolved problems of animal life, 



and especially of Marten life, is the periodic rise and fall of the 

 population. The Marten continue to increase for seven or 



