HISTORY AND HABITS OF THE WOLVERENE. 43 



\ understood as ioiplying that any distinction, varietal or spe- 

 1 cific, subsists between the Glutton and the Wolverene. 

 ■ In comparing numerous American skulls with one from Lap- 

 land, I detect in the former a tendency to less constriction of 

 the cranium behind the postorbital processes. This is an in- 

 teresting correlation with one of the more pronounced differ- 

 ences in the skulls of M. martes and 21. americana. But this 

 is the only discrepancy I find, and it is not, moreover, uni- 

 formly exhibited to any appreciable degree. The identity of 

 the animals of the two continents is to be considered fairly es- 

 tablished, whatever range of variation in size and color either 

 may present. 

 Pallas notes a curious supposed character in urging a criti- 

 j cal comparison of the two forms. " Pilos Guloni esse trique- 

 I tros notavit Baster (Act. Harlemens. vol. xv.) sed hoc an in 

 Americano ? nostrati pili teretes *', he says, on p. 75 of the 

 " Zoographia ". 



HISTORY AND HABITS OF THE SPECIES. 



The written history of the Glutton or Wolverene dates from 

 an early period in the sixteenth century, when the animal is 

 mentioned with little interval of time by several writers in much, 

 the same extravagant terms. The first appearance of the ani- 

 mal in literature is said by von Martens to have been in 1532, 

 at the hands of Michow, a physician of Cracow, in the work Be 

 Sarmatia Asiana et UurojKva. Olaus Magnus (1562), to whom 

 is commonly attributed the earliest mention, though he thus 

 appears to have been anticipated, gives a most extraordinary 

 account, made up of the then current popular traditions and 

 1 superstitions, and tales of hunters or travellers, unchecked by 

 any proper scientific enquiry; although, to do him justice, he 

 does not entirely credit them himself. We may be sure that 

 such savory morsels of animal biography did not escape the 

 notice of subsequent compilers, and that they lost nothing of 

 their flavor at the hands of the versatile and vivacious Buffon. 

 Endorsed for two centuries by various writers, each more or 

 less authoritative in his own times, and, moreover, appealing 

 strongly to the popular love of the marvellous, the current fables 

 took strong root and grew apace, flourishing like all ^' ill weeds", 

 and choking sober accounts. Coming down to us through such 

 a long line of illustrious godfathers, they were treated with the 

 respect generally accorded to long years, and furnished the- 



