1 66 MAMMALS OF PENNSYLVANIA AND NEW JERSEY. 



knowledge of other instances, where this peculiar, carnivorous and fur bear- 

 ing animal may have been captured or seen in our limits. 



Habits, etc. — For its size, which is about equal to that of a bear cub of 6 

 months, there is not a more powerful, voracious, cunning and fearless animal 

 than the wolverene. The most fabulous accounts of it were given by earlier 

 writers. Dr. Coues, in his Monograph of the Fur-bearing Animals, p. 45, 

 sums up its real character thus : The wolverene " is simply an uncommonly 

 large, clumsy, shaggy marten or weasel, of great strength, without corre- 

 sponding agility, highly carnivorous, like the rest of its tribe, and displaying 

 great perseverance and sagacity in procuring food. It is imperfectly planti- 

 grade and does not climb trees like most of its allies. It lives in dens or bur- 

 rows and does not hibernate. It feeds upon the carcasses of large animals 

 which it finds already slain, but does not destroy such creatures itself, its 

 ordinary prey being of a much humbler character. It is a notorious thief, 

 not only of stores of meat and fish laid up by the natives of the countries it 

 inhabits, the baits of their traps and the animals so caught, but also of articles 

 of no possible service to itself; and avoids with most admirable cunning the 

 various methods devised for its dcotruction in retaliation." They have their 

 young in underground burrows. There are four or five in a litter, born in 

 June or July. When surprised at large with her young the female is more 

 aggressive and dangerous than a bear in the same situation. One of the 

 most peculiar actions which has been observed in the wolverene is the shad- 

 ing of its eyes by the fore paws when gazing at an object of sudden surprise 

 or fear, especially a man. This action is evidently done for the same reason 

 that would induce a short-sighted person, or one blinded by sunshine, to 

 shade their eyes under similar circumstances. The fur of this animal is most 

 highly prized by the natives of the fur countries, the Kamtschatkans saying 

 that "the heavenly beings wear no other furs" than these. They form a 

 considerable fraction of the importations to London of the Hudson Bay Co., 

 1,104 being sent in 1868. 



Description of species. — Legs, short ; when in motion, back high-arched, 

 body drooping fore and aft, tail and head carried low, looking like a shaggy 

 bear cub with a bushy tail. Tail thickly clothed with hair four to eight 

 inches long, shortest near the body, longest at tips, and drooping, the whole 

 tail looking like that of a moderately docked horse whose tail has not been 

 trimmed for a long while. Ears short, rounded. Color, blackish or deep 

 dusky brown, a peculiar broad stripe of chestnut or yellowish brown or 

 whitish clay color reaching from behind the shoulders and along the sides, 

 meeting on the rump that of the opposite side, almost enclosing a dark patch 

 along the middle of the back which reaches the neck and head. Whitish 

 and yellowish patches are found on the sides of head and on throat and 

 breast. Very young ones are of a general creamy color. 



