THE RARE FURS OF THE WEASEL FAMILY 103 



Kolinsky is nocturnal in habits. It climbs trees like the mar- 

 ten ; robs nests, eats squirrels, birds, eggs, mice and berries. It 

 is a great blood-drinker and hunts exactly like the cat, by furtive, 

 stealthy approach, then a savage leap, with one strike of the sharp 

 teeth into the brain or neck of the victim ; and the poor, stupid, 

 defenceless hare falls its victim just as it falls the victim to mink. 

 I have often wondered if the souls of cowards are sent back for a 

 period of probation to the bodies of rabbits and hares to be haunted 

 by their own fears. 



The first rage for kolinsky came to the United States when 

 the War shut off European markets ; but the fur combines utility 

 with beauty to such a marked degree that I do not believe it will 

 ever lose favor with the American market — especially as long as 

 it sells at a sixth the price of minks and martens. It is a type of 

 mink that seems to me all ready designed for coats ; for it has to 

 be dyed and cannot be sold undyed. Whereas, good marten and 

 good mink should never be dyed ; but if you match the stripes in 

 coats and mantles, there must always be more or less dyeing ; and 

 to put $30,000 in one garment comes very near being a fur, if not 

 a game, hog. Every skin in a $30,000 coat would have made a 

 neck piece to vie with diamonds. 



But it is when you are considering the sables and the martens 

 that you are considering the royal family amid weasel furs. Sham 

 aristocrats here have created as much confusion as sham aristocrats 

 in the human world. Sable is sable and marten is marten and mink 

 is mink; but to call one by the name of the other is only to confuse 

 the public into a timidity of buying. 



American marten is marten. It is never sable, though we call 

 it American sable, or Hudson Bay sable. 



The only true sable is the Russian sable. 



The wild marten is just as blood-thirsty as the mink, but he 

 can be tamed into a pet, which the mink never can. The marten 

 is larger than the mink, and resembles a cat or fox more than a 

 snake. He mates in January or February, and his young are born 



