THE WHITE ERMINE 269 



acteristics of the footprints are the length and strength 

 of the leaps. Across these leaps the hunter leaves his 

 traps. Does he hope for a silver fox? Does every 

 prospector expect to find gold nuggets? In the heyday 

 of fur company prosperity., not half a dozen true silver 

 foxes would be sent out in a year. To-day I doubt if 

 more than one good silver fox is sent out in half a 

 dozen years. But good white fox and black and blue 

 are prizes enough in themselves, netting as much to the 

 trapper as mink or beaver or sable. 



II 

 The White Ermine 



All that was said of the mystery of fox life applies 

 equally to ermine. Why is the ermine of Wisconsin 

 and Minnesota and Dakota a dirty little weasel noted 

 for killing forty chickens in a night, wearing a mahog 

 any-coloured coat with a sulphur strip down his throat, 

 while the ermine of the Arctics is as white as snow, 

 noted for his courage, wearing a spotless coat which 

 kings envy, yes, and take from him? For a long time 

 the learned men who study animal life from museums 

 held that the ermine s coat turned white from the same 

 cause as human hair, from senility and debility and the 

 depleting effect of an intensely trying climate. But 

 the trappers told a different story. They told of baby 

 ermine born in Arctic burrows, in March, April, May, 

 June, while the mother was still in white coat, babies 

 born in an ashy coat something like a mouse-skin that 

 turned to fleecy white within ten days. They told of 

 ermine shedding his brown coat in autumn to display 

 a fresh layer of iron-gray fur that turned sulphur 



