134 NORTH AMERICAN MUSTELID.E. 



observed a curious kind of burrow made by Ermines in the snow, 

 " which was pushed up in the same manner as the tracks of 

 moles through the earth in England. These passages run in a 

 serpentine direction, and near the hole or dwelling place the 

 circles are multiplied, as if to render the approach more intri- 

 cate." Audubon has a passage of similar effect : — " We have 

 frequently observed where it had made long galleries in the 

 deep snow for twenty or thirty yards, and thus in going from 

 oue burrow to another, instead of travelling over the surface, it 

 had constructed for itself a kind of tunuel beneath." 



Accounts of different writers indicate a great variation in the 

 number of young produced at a birth — from two to twelve. We 

 may safely assume that these are unusual extremes, the aver- 

 age litter being five or six. As in case of the Mink, the rutting 

 season is early 5 in the United States, during a part of Febru- 

 ary and March. Young have been noted, toward the southern 

 extreme of the range of the species, before the end of March ; 

 but most are produced in May or late in April. Without defi- 

 nite information respecting the period of gestation, we may sur- 

 mise this to be about six or seven weeks. Information is also 

 wanting of the length of time that the young nurse or require 

 to have food brought them by the parents. 



On the distribution of the Ermine in the Old World.* 



Georgi {loc. cit. [i. e., Geogr. Phys. Besch. iii. 6], p. 1539) 

 indicates, with regard to the distribution of the Ermine in 

 Kussia, the southern temperate, and the cold regions almost 

 to the Arctic Ocean. He mentions, as special localities, the 

 Polish-Russian and Dnieper governments, Curland, Livonia, 

 and Ingermannland, also Finland, the governments on the 

 Volga and its tributaries, and also the governments of Arch- 

 angel, Wiburg, Wologda, Perm, those of the southeast to 

 Bucharia; Siberia from the Ural to the Jeuisei, Dauria, the 

 Lena River, Kamtschatka, and finally the Kurile and Aleu- 

 tian Islands; and calls attention to its abundance in Siberia. 

 Pallas (Zoogr. R.-A. i. p. 92) gives the Ermine as inhabit- 

 ing not only the whole of Europe, and Asia to India, but 

 also asserts its extension into America, remarking, however, 

 its absence from the Kurile and Aleutian Islands. Accord- 

 ing to Wosnessenski's observations, communicated to me 



* Translated from Brandt's article already quoted with reference to Oulo 

 luscus. 



