712 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. vol. xxvm. 



Fort Anderson, but In the forest rouion to the south martens were 

 fairly abundant in some years. The writer has seen several albino 

 examples, and also a considerable number of l)rioht yellow and dark 

 orano'e colored martens in his time, particularly wliile stationed in the 

 districts of Mackenzie River and Athabasca. In the month of Feb- 

 ruary, 1890, Albert Flett, then chief of the Cumberland House band 

 of free Indians, brouo-ht me a large male marten somewhat ditferent 

 from any that I had previously met with or specially noticed. After 

 it was properly skinned and prepared, it was forwarded to the Smith- 

 sonian Institution at Washinoton. 1 think the chief told me that he 

 had trapped it in the Pas Mountain, some 60 or TO miles to the south- 

 ward of Cumberland House. He also informed me that he had seen 

 several similar animals captured in the same quarter. It is now 

 described under Mudela ariiericiuia dlhletlrola^ subsp. nov., Hudson 

 Bay Marten, in JVoiiJi. Ainericaa Fauna^ No. 22, 1902, b\" that zealous 

 naturalist, Mr. Edward A. Preble of the U. S. Biological Surve3\ 



WEASEL— ERMINE. 



Futorliis arclictis INIerriain, P. cicogiuinnii (Bonaj)arte), and ]'. cirngnimnii ricJianhoriii 



( Bonaparte) . 



1 believe the weasel extends to the north of Fort Anderson, where 

 several specimens were obtained from the natives in course of our 

 five years' residence from 18*)1 to 186(>. The Eskimos of the lower 

 Mackenzie and Anderson rivers use the skin of the weasel very largely 

 in their conjuring and other I'eligious exercises. It may l)e here men- 

 tioned that ermines are not particularly abundant within the Arctic 

 Circle, although there, as elsewhere throughout the wooded country, 

 they are more numerous some seasons than others. Doctor Arm- 

 strong refei's to the presence of one of these species on Baring Land. 

 Sir James Ross says they are fairly abundant at Boothia Felix, where 

 they feed maiidy on lennnings. Sir (leorge Nares observed many 

 ermines where he wintered in 1875-76. General Greelv also secured 

 eight examples on Grinnell Land, and gives latitude 82-' 36' north as 

 about their highest range in that polar (piarter. 



Quite a large number of spcH'imens of these animals were obtained 

 at Fort Anderson from the Eskimos, as well as from the Indians, and 

 a few were captured in the stores and in the vicinity of th(> place. 

 They range to the shoi-es of the American coast. Ross, jS'ares, Greelv, 

 and Doctor Armstrong refer to these species in their respective arctic 

 exploring voiuuuvs. The female gives birth to her young, from four 

 to eight, and sometimes as many as nine and ten, in INIay and June, 

 annually. They are said to be blind and very helpless when born, and 

 so contiiuic for some time afterwards. Although ermines no doubt 

 destroy soni(> food themselves, yet when one manages to get inside a 

 Hudson Bay iidand store, it soon makes a clean sweep of tield or other 



