102 BULLETIN NO. VII. 
the traps are destroyed and hidden, and the bait devoured or 
cached. According to northern explorers the animal is a victim 
of a senseless kleptomania, not contenting itself in confiscating 
everything it can devour, but stealing and secreting all articles 
it is able to carry. It may be itself trapped in a dead-fall or 
steel-trap of large size, but great skill is required to outwit the 
animal. 
The wolverene brings forth four or five young, in secluded 
caverns or hollow logs, in June or July, and the female is said 
to be very fierce and even dangerous while guarding the young. 
The sense of smell is the best developed of the senses, the 
vision being particularly unreliable; which may give rise to 
the habit with which it is credited, of shading its eyes with its 
paw when looking at a distance. 
GENUS MUSTELA; LINN. 
This genus, including the martens, differs in many respects 
from the glutton, and connects that animal with the slender 
weasels. The dental formule are identical, $:+:4::—88, and dif- 
fer from that of Putoris in having one more premolar above 
and below. The skull is much less massive and more tapering 
than in Gulo. The rostral portion is elongated. The frontal 
profile is concave. There are seven cervical vertebre, sixteen 
dorsals, six lumbar, three sacral, and eighteen to twenty cau- 
dal. The form is stout and somewhat cat-like or fox-like; size 
moderate—that of a cat; progression digitigrade; fur dense and 
valuable; habit arboreal and terrestrial. Although many vari- 
eties are known to furriers, zoologically but four, or at most 
five, species can be recognized. The true sable is M. zibellina, 
closely allied to which is M. martes, the common European spe- 
cies. The house marten, M. foina, is of a greyer color, and 
has a longer tail than the above. Our own MM. americana, or 
marten, closely resembles the M. martes, while the fisher is 
widely different. The following table of differentia may prove 
useful. 
M. pennanti (Fischer). Length 2 feet or more, tail over 1 foot, tapering ; 
ears wide, semi-circular ; color blackish, darkest below; no 
light throat-patch. 
M. americana. Length under 2 feet; tail less than 1 foot, uniformly 
bushy ; ears high, triangular ; color brownish, darker above, 
usually with a lighter patch on the throat. 
