296 



NORTH AMERICAN FAUNA 



[No. 55 



Distribution and habitat. This western form of the marten ranges 

 from southern British Columbia to northern California through the 

 Cascades and coastal area of Washington and Oregon (fig. 70). 

 Specimens from southern Oregon are included but are grading toward 

 Martes cawrina, sierrae characterized by Grinnell and Storer from the 

 Sierra Nevada. In Oregon they are found mainly in Canadian and 

 Hudsonian Zones of the mountains, and in the humid mixed zones of 

 the coast and Coast Ranges. 



General habits. Martens are primarily forest dwellers, ranging 

 mainly in the dense coniferous forests where they travel widely in 

 search of small game. They are expert climbers and will leap from 

 tree to tree in pursuit of their prey, or stalk it on the ground among 

 the logs and undergrowth, or even range among the bare rocks high 



above timber line in search 

 of conies. While mainly 

 nocturnal they are often 

 active during the day and 

 seem to see well even in 

 bright sunlight, and conse- 

 quently do their hunting 

 by night or day whenever 

 they feel the urge of hun- 

 ger. Where really com- 

 mon they are occasionally 

 seen running over logs or 

 up trees in alarmat passers- 

 by, but generally they are 

 so scarce as to be rarely 

 seen, except when caught 

 in traps. Their nests and 

 such temporary homes as 

 they may claim are in hollow trees or logs, or among the rocks, but 

 outside of the breeding season they seem to be wide wanderers with 

 many temporary camps and shelters. In winter their unmistakable 

 diagonally paired tracks, much larger than those of the mink, are 

 occasionally seen leading from grove to grove or through brush 

 patches where rabbits and grouse might be found, over hilltops or 

 through deep woods in the manner of foxes or weasels rather than 

 along the watercourses where the mink and otter hunt. 



Breeding habits. Female martens have usually 2 or 3 pairs of 

 well developed mammae on the posterior, abdominal or inguinal 

 region, and there are records of 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 embryos or young. 

 The young are born generally in April, May, or June. On June 19, 

 1889, T. S. Palmer secured a young one only a few days old near 

 Crescent City, Calif., taken from its mother by a farmer as she 

 carried her young in her mouth, one at a time, across the road. The 

 young are said to develop slowly but are half grown and out of the 

 nest by the middle of July. 



Food habits. Martens might be called omnivorous carnivores, for 

 they capture a great variety of small game, largely mice, chipmunks, 

 squirrels, wood rats, conies, and rabbits, as well as any birds that 

 come in their way, and they even feast on some insects and berries if 

 these are numerous. The stomachs of two caught in August 1896 at 



FIGURE 70. Range of the two forms of martens in 

 Oregon : 1, Martes caurina caurina; 2, M. c. 

 oriyenes. 



