HISTORY AND HABITS OF THE WOLVERENE. 49 



farther south iu the West. lu Massachusetts, according to Mr. 

 Allen, it still lingered a few years since, in that portion where 

 the Canadian, as distinguished from the AUeghanian, fauna is 

 represented. But the Massachusetts reports are all probably 

 traceable to a Hoosac Mountain record some years prior. Dr. 

 Hitchcock and Dr. De Kay both quote Dr. Emmons for this, 

 although the species is not given in the latter's report. In 

 New York, it was rare in the time of Audubon and De Kay : 

 the former notes specimens from Rensselaer (1810) and Jefferson 

 (1827) Counties. Dr. Z. Thompson, writing in 1853, states that 

 it was then extremely rare iu Vermont, none having been met 

 with to his knowledge for several years. Though occasionally 

 found when the country was new in all parts of the State, it 

 was never very plentiful, and for years had been known only 

 in the most wooded and unsettled parts. I have met with but 

 one record of its presence in the United States from west of 

 New York to the Rocky Mountaius, though it is to be pre- 

 sumed that it inhabits, or has lately done so, the wooded por- 

 tions of our northern frontier. Maximilian speaks {I. c.) of the 

 occurrence of the species on the western border of Canada and 

 near the mouth of the Red River of the North, and surmises 

 \ that the species may extend to the Missouri River, especially 

 I as he saw a skin, but without indication of locality, at one of 

 •the trading posts. I never saw the Wolverene in Dakota or 

 ' Montana, where most of the country is altogether too open. 

 Baird, however, speaks of its occasional occurrence in the Black 

 Hills, and registers a specimen from '' northwest of Fort Union"'* 

 (probably Montana, toward the base of the Rocky Mountains); 

 and Mr. C. H. Merriam (as recorded I. s. c.) procured a speci- 

 men on the Yellowstone River, Wyoming, in August, 1872. 

 In the Rocky Mountains, as was to have been expected, its 

 extension southward has been traced to the farthest known 

 point, between 40^ and 39^. Professor Baird notes a specimen 

 obtained by Captain Stansbury from the Great Salt Lake, Utah, 

 which lies wholly south of 42^. This individual is still (1877) pre- 

 served, mounted, in the National Museum. It is probable that 

 its extreme limit is even somewhat farther than this, reaching in 

 the mountains to the borders of Arizona and New Mexico and 



*This locality (Fort Union), frequently mentioned in the works of Au- 

 dubon, Baird, and others, no longer exists as such, being now a heap of rub- 

 bish. It is replaced by Fort Buford, commanding the mouth of the Yellow- 

 stone, at the extreme southwest corner of Dakota, adjoining the southeast 

 corner of Montana. 

 4 M 



