ORDER CARNIVORA: CARNIVORES 239 



it disappeared about the middle of the last century. About 1873 

 it was found occasionally on the Patom River. Its disappearance 

 from the entire southern Muisk district was unusually rapid. It 

 has been recorded from the Aldan and Mae Rivers. (Ognev, 1931, 

 p. 573.) 



The dark animals furnish the most valuable skins; in peace times 

 they fetched as much as 2000 marks. They come mostly from the 

 Vitim Plateau and from the Bargusin district, where the Sable is 

 now almost exterminated. (Klemm, 1930, p. 367.) 



Eastern Siberia. At present the Sable is not found in the Verk- 

 hoyansk and Kolyma districts. In former times it was widely 

 distributed along the Kolyma and Omolon Rivers, but it finally 

 disappeared from the Kolyma district in 1852. The species has 

 long since vanished from the Anadyr River region ; the last one was 

 found near the village of Eropol about 1847. 



By 1900 the species was rare in the Gizhiginsk district, though 

 in former years from 30 to 50 Sables were collected annually, par- 

 ticularly from the Penzhina Valley and from northern Kamchatka. 

 Possibly this form belongs to M. z. kamtschadalica, which is widely 

 distributed in Kamchatka, especially in the Petropavlovsk district. 

 (Ognev, 1931, pp. 574-575, 595.) 



In Kamchatka the Sable was decimated in Dybowski's time (1879- 

 85). At the beginning of the nineteenth century a hunter could 

 get 40 animals a day, and the annual production of Kamchatka 

 amounted to 10,000 skins. The natives did not endanger the stand 

 of Sables, but by 1881 Cossack and Tungus immigrants reduced the 

 yield to 2,883. The abundance of the animals in some years was 

 dependent on the wholesale occurrence of a vole, Microtus oecono- 

 micus. (Kuntze, 1932, p. 47.) 



In the western Amur region the species occurs on the Argun and 

 Shilka Rivers. In the middle and lower Amur Basin, the Sables 

 from the Albazin area, the Zeya River, and the Bureya Mountains, 

 which are very dark in color, and costly, may belong to the sub- 

 species M. z. princeps. In 1861 the species was reported as particu- 

 larly numerous on the Amgun River. In the Ussuri district it varies 

 from common to rare, and has even disappeared entirely in some 

 parts. The Ussuri Sable is probably very near to M . z. sahalinensis. 

 (Ognev, 1925, pp. 279-280, and 1931, pp. 573-574.) 



Sowerby (1923, pp. 63-65) says that among the Tartars of the 

 Primorsk coast in southeastern Siberia, "sable hunting is their chief 

 end and aim in existence." He continues: 



It is certain that it was largely the presence of the sable throughout Siberia 

 and in the Amur and Primorsk that led the Russian pioneers and conquerors 

 across that wide stretch of country. . . . Thus we must look upon this little 

 animal as having a very important bearing upon the history of these regions. 



