Pine Marten 



rich brown, somewhat lighter below, throat with a light 

 tawny spot, ears high and pointed. 

 Range. Boreal forests south through the mountains to Pennsylvania. 



Martens love best thick old-growth forests of evergreen, 

 where dead trees lean together and stretch along the ground 

 half buried and crumbling. 



Here they live among the trees almost like squirrels, racing 

 along old windfalls and up among the branches, to leap over 

 into the next tree-top and so away through the woods ; chas- 

 ing the red squirrels in the pine boughs, and catching them too 

 in spite of all their quickness. Then down to earth again, 

 bounding off on the trail of a hare, eager and excited with the 

 scent of fresh game in their nostrils. 



In warm weather they keep more to the swamps and low, 

 moist woods, where the dead leaves lie wet in the hollows. 



Although martens kill all sorts of birds and animals indis- 

 criminately, they appear to prefer partridges, rabbits and squirrels, 

 hunting them most persistently. They will follow the trail of a 

 hare, nose to the earth, quartering along its crooked course until 

 their terrified prey starts up before them from its hiding place; 

 then for a little while it is a close hot chase by sight. If the 

 marten fails to seize him in the first few jumps, the hare may out- 

 distance him and go flying away over stumps and logs out of 

 sight among the trees. The marten, however, merely drops his 

 nose to the trail once more and follows it up without a break, 

 perfectly certain of success in the end. Even in deep soft snow 

 the marten is able to chase the hare with success, his feet being 

 broad and well furred, supporting him on the surface, where a 

 mink's or even a weasel's would sink deep. 



Like the mink and weasel, martens have little to fear from 

 native enemies; the much larger fisher is said to kill them occa- 

 sionally, and it is not improbable that the great horned owl now 

 and then manages to pounce on one unawares. 



But though they are almost free from the strong musky 

 odour characteristic of the other weasels, very few of the car- 

 nivores care to taste their flesh unless driven to it by extreme 

 hunger. 



Before the coming of the Europeans they must have multi- 

 plied exceedingly in all the northern forests, to the terror and 



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