ROUS 



938 Life-histories of Northern Animals 



record" the killing of an Ontario specimen thus: "A Fisher 

 was shot by a hunter named Marsh, near Port Hope, who said 

 it was up a tree in close pursuit of a Marten, which he also 

 brought with it." 



Ross testifies'" that the Fisher, like the Marten, lives 

 principally on Mice, thus bringing it back to the standby of all 

 carnivorous races. But Mice are not always attainable, and 

 the valiant one may be subdued by grim hunger and descend 

 yet lower in the accepted scale of diet. 

 oMNivo- George Crawford (the Indian guide, Mittigwab) tells me 



that in August, 1896, at Lake Kippewa he saw a Fisher on the 

 shore pulling down berries and eating them. They were, he 

 said, small sweetish berries in bunches with round leaves. 

 They are like huckleberries, but black, not found except well 

 up north. Dr. Coues is authority for the statement that it will 

 stay its hunger with beechnuts if nothing better is at hand.^° 

 The favourite food of the Pekan appears to be the Rabbit 

 or White-hare. What little migrating the species does, is, no 

 doubt, irregular wandering in search of woods or regions where 

 the Hare abounds. 



RABBIT- In pursuing these it may either stalk them cat-fashion or 



run them dog-fashion. Hardy says:^' "I have known one to 

 catch a Rabbit by cutting across when the Rabbit circled. I 

 once saw a Fisher which had driven a Rabbit into the Alleguash 

 River. The Rabbit had swum to a gravel bed in the middle 

 of the river, and sat crouched down, while the Fisher kept 

 racing up and down on the shore, but did not take the water 

 where the tracks ended, as a hound would have done." 



A case of the kind came under my notice at the Lake of the 

 Woods, as already noted, and the following incident" gives a 

 graphic picture of how it is done. 



"I once saw a Hare come out of the woods onto Lake 

 Mollychunckemunk, running at great speed, and, immediately 



" Ibid., p. 313. " Can. Nat., iS6i, VI, p. 24. 



" Fur-bearinn Anim., 1877, p. 70. " See Note 4. 



» J. G. R., Bethel, Me., F. & S., January 14, 1886, p. 484. 



RUNNER 



