44 NORTH AMERICAN MUSTELID.E. 



jjf I staple of professedly edacatioual text-books. Probably no 

 P f youth's early conceptious of the Glutton were uncolored with 

 romance ; the general picture impressed upon the susceptible 

 mind of that period being that of a ravenous monster of insa- 

 tiate voracity, matchless strength, and supernatural cunning, a 

 terror to all other beasts, the bloodthirsty master of the forest. 

 We cannot wonder at the quality of the stream, when we turn 

 to the fountain-head of such gross exaggeration. We find it 

 gravely stated that this brute will feast upon the carcase of 

 some large animal until its belly is swollen as tight as a drum, 

 and then get rid of its burden by squeezing itself between two 

 trees, in order that it may return to glut itself anew — an alleged 

 climax of gluttony to which no four-footed beast attains, and 

 for the parallel of which we must refer to some of the most 

 noted gormandizers of the Roman Emigre. We have indeed 

 reliable accounts of such gastronomic exploits, but they are 

 not a part of those records which are generally accepted as 

 zoological. In one of the old zoological works of some celeb- 

 rity, there is a very droll picture of a Wolverene squeezing 

 itself between two trees, with a most anxious expression of 

 countenance, the fore part of the body being pressed thin, while 

 the hinder is still distended, and the large pile of manure already 

 deposited being rapidly augmented with further supplies,/ Still 

 in the track of the marvellous, we read how the Glutton, too 

 clumsy and tardy of foot to overtake large Ruminants, betakes 

 itself to the trees beneath which they may pass, and there 

 crouches in wait for its victim ; it drops like a shot upon the 

 unsuspecting Elk, Moose, Reindeer, and, fastening with claws 

 and teeth, sucks the blood and destroys them as they run. That 

 nothing may be left undone to ensure success, the animal has 

 the wit to throw down moss or lichens to attract its prey, and 

 to employ the friendly services of Foxes to drive the quarry 

 beneath the fatal spot. I allude to these things, not that such 

 gross exaggerations longer require refutation, but because they 

 are a part, and no inconsiderable one, of the history of the 

 species ; and because, as we shall see in the sequel, a i>erfectly 

 ^emperate and truthful narration of the creature's actual habits 

 / sufficiently attests the possession of really remarkable qualities, 

 which need be but caricatured for transformation into just such 

 fables. We may remember,/also, that the history of the Wol- 

 verene is mixed in some cases with that of other animals, some 

 of whose habits have been attributed to it. Thus Charlevoix 



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