2 Baitf/s — The Weasels of Edsfera North America. 



Material. 



Throuii'h the kindness of Dr. C. Hart ^lerriani, Dr. J. A. Allen, 

 Dr. G. Brown Goode, and Mr. William Brewster, I have been 

 enabled to study the eastern weasels belonging to the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, the American Museum of Natural History, 

 the United States National Museum, and the Museum of Com- 

 parative Zoology. Dr. C. Hart jNIerriam, Mr. Gerrit S. Miller. 

 Jr., Mr. Samuel N. Rhoads,and Mr. John H. Sage have also sent 

 me all the skins of weasels in their private collections. These 

 and the large series in the collection of E. A. and 0. Bangs com- 

 prise a much larger amount of material than was ever before 

 brought together, and enabled me to examine between five and 

 six hundred skins and nearly as many skulls. Of some of the 

 rarer species, as P.pemnsuLx, P. ri.roswi, and P. richardsoni, there 

 are still very few specimens in existence, and these are mostly 

 old,230or, or imperfect. I am much indebted to Mr. Oldfield 

 Thomas, of the British Museum, for com})arisons with the sup- 

 posed types of P. rlchardsonl and P. longicnuda which are still in 

 that museum, and for sending me specimens of the European 

 species for comparison with ours. 



Subgenus GALE Wagner. 



Putorius proper, as restricted to the polecats and the ferrets of 

 the old world, is represented in America by Putorius nigripes onl3\ 

 All our other weasels belong to the subgenus Gole. 



The subgenus Gale is distinguished from Putorius proper by 

 the slender elongate body, terete tail with a decided pencil, and 

 the slightly palmate feet, rather than by any important structural 

 characters. Skulls of the larger American weasels, such as frenatus 

 and longicauda, are not essentially different from the skull of Pu- 

 torius proper, and there is a regular gradation through novebora- 

 ceiisis, where the male skull resembles the hmgicauda group and 

 the female skull the richardsoni group, down to the little, light, 

 smooth skull of rixosus, which represents the extreme of differ- 

 entiation of Gale. 



Variation. 



Sexuul variation. — The great difference in size between the sexes 

 of all the species of Putorius is now well known, but in no group 

 is it so marked as in the subgenus Gide. The different s})ecies 

 vary in this respect: in P. noveboracensis the difference is greater 



