648 THE CARNIVORES 



hair of the body and limbs is brownish black or black, darkest on the head, tail, 

 feet, and under parts; while the ears are white, and there are some brown and white 

 markings on the face and mouth. The woolly under-fur is a pale yellow, or ful- 

 vous, and by showing through the long hair communicates a general brown tinge, 

 mingled with yellow, to the whole pelage; the tint varying considerably in different 

 individuals. The fur is very long and loose on most parts of the body, and is com- 

 mercially known as "fitch," from the name Fitchet, or Fitcher, applied in many 

 parts of the country to this animal. The range of the polecat includes the greater 

 part of Europe, extending as far northward as the southerly districts of Sweden and 

 the White Sea, but not including the Mediterranean countries. In Western and 

 Northern Asia it is replaced by the closely- allied Siberian polecat (M. eversmanni ) , 

 which appears to be distinguished mainly by the head and back being nearly white, 

 and by certain differences in the form of the skull. A third nearly-allied kind is the 

 Tibetan polecat (M. larvata), inhabiting Ladakh and Tibet, which differs only from 

 the last by certain features in the base of the skull. 



SKELETON OF THE POLECAT. 



The Sarmatian polecat (P. sarmaticus} is, however, a very distinct 

 Polecat 



species, of rather smaller size than the common kind, and well distin- 



guished by the fur of the under parts being of a glossy black, while 

 that of the upper parts is a mixture of brown and yellowish white. This species, 

 often known as the mottled polecat, presents, therefore, another instance of that pe- 

 culiar distribution of dark and light colors which we have already alluded to as char- 

 acteristic of several members of the family. It is found in Southeastern Europe, 

 northward from Poland, whence it extends into Western Asia, where it is common 

 in the neighborhood of Kandahar. 



Lastly, we have the American, or black-footed polecat {M. nigripes), 

 a p"i ( -t 6 which i s generally of a brownish-white color, with the feet, the tip of 



the tail, and a broad stripe across the forehead, black. It is larger 

 than the common species ; the length of the head and body measuring nineteen 

 inches, and that of the tail, with the hair at the end, five and one-half inches. It 

 inhabits the central plateau of the United States, ranging as far south as Texas. 



The habits of all these five species of polecat appear to be very similar, 



and the whole of them are characterized by their extremely fetid odor. 

 From the barren nature of the country which it inhabits, the Tibetan polecat proba- 

 bly, however, dwells among rocks and stones; while the Sarmatian species gener- 

 ally resides in the deserted burrows of other animals. 



