884 HUNTING ADVENTURES. 



The name of Fisher, which has been censured as not applicable 

 to this animal, is, however, that by which it is best known, and 

 which it has received from its cnaracteristic habits. Richardson 

 states that it feeds on the hoards of frozen fish stored up by the 

 residents. We are informed by a person who resided many years 

 near Lake Oneida, where the Fisher was then common, that the 

 name was derived from its singular fondness for the fish used to 

 bait traps. The hunters were in the practice of soaking- their fish 

 over night, and it was frequently carried off by the Fisher, whose 

 well known tracks were seen in the v'cinity. T n Hamilton county 

 it is still numerous and troublesome. The hunters there have 

 assured me that they have known a fisher to destroy twelve out 

 of thirteen traps in a line of not more than fourteen miles in length. 

 It brings forth two young annually. The hunting season for the 

 fisher in the northern part of the State, commences about the tenth 

 of October, and lasts to the middle of May, when the furs are not 

 so valuable. The ordinary price is $1 50 per skin ; but it is not 

 so fine, nor so highly valued as that of the sable. Its geographical 

 range is included between the fortieth and seventieth parallels of 

 latitudes, extending across the continent. 



The American Gray Rabbit, so common in the United States, 

 has been, until recently, confounded with others. The following 

 description by Schreber, which seems to have been overlooked by 

 modern writers, applies very well to our rabbit : 



"Cheeks full of thick hair; ears thin externally, with few hairs, 

 naked within, and when bent forward, do not reach the nose ; 

 when bent backwards, they reach the shoulder blades ; eyes 

 large and black, with 4-5 bristles above them ; whiskers mostly 

 black ; some are white ; the longest appears to reach beyond the 

 head. Color in summer: ears brownish, with a very narrow 

 black border on the outer margin, of the same breadth to the tips, 

 or becomes effaced ; brown cheeks, back and sides ; fore and hind 

 legs light brown externally, mixed with black ; t all round the 

 breech, white ; feet full of short hair of a light brown, unmixed with 

 black, changing towards the inside to a grey white ; upper part 

 of the tail like that of the back, (perhaps mixed with black, as 



