JAPANESE SABLY..—3I(aies meldnojms. 



The Sables are celebrated for their beautiful fur, and the great liardships 

 which arc undergone by the hunters in attaining it. The animals inhabit 

 Southern climes, and as their fur is finest and longest m winter, the hunters are 

 forced to brave the terrible IVosts of those icy regions, and often perish in the 

 chase. 



A sudden and heavy snow-storm will obliterate in a single half-houi' every 

 trace by which the hunter had marked out his ])ath, and, if it should be of long 

 conthiuance, may overwhelm him in the mountain " drifts " wdiich are heaped so 

 strangely by the fierce tempests that sweep over those fearful regions. Should 

 he not be an exceedingly experienced hunter, possessed of a spirit which is 

 undaunted in tlie midst of dangers, and of a mind which is stored wqtli the 

 multitudinous precepts of hunters' lore, he is certain to sink under the accu- 

 mulated teiTors of his situation, and to perish by cold and hunger in the midst 

 of the snow-sea that rolls in huge white billows over the face of the country. 



127 



