MUSTELIDsE 585 



M. americana, the North-American Sable or Marten. A species 

 so closely allied to the European Pine Marten and Asiatic Sable 

 that it is very difficult to assign constant distinguishing characters 

 between them. The importance of the fur of this animal as an 

 article of commerce may be judged of from the fact that 15,000 

 skins were sold in one year by the Hudson's Bay Company as long 

 ago as 1743, and the more recent annual imports into Great Britain 

 have exceeded 100,000. It is ordinarily caught in wooden traps 

 of very simple construction, being little enclosures of stakes or 

 brush in which the bait is placed upon a trigger, with a short 

 upright stick supporting a log of wood, which falls upon its victim 

 on the slightest disturbance. A line of such traps, several to a mile, 

 often extends many miles. The bait is any kind of meat, a mouse, 

 squirrel, piece of fish, or bird's head. It is principally trapped 

 during the colder months, from October to April, when the fur is 

 in good condition, as it is nearly valueless during the shedding in 

 summer. Dr. Coues tells us that, notwithstanding the persistent 

 and uninterrupted destruction to which x the American Sable is 

 subjected, it does not appear to diminish materially in numbers in 

 unsettled parts of the country. It holds its own partly in conse- 

 quence of its shyness, which keeps it away from the abodes of men, 

 and partly because it is so prolific, bringing forth six to eight young 

 at a litter. Its home is sometimes a den under ground or beneath 

 rocks, but oftener the hollow of a tree, and it is said frequently to 

 take forcible possession of a squirrel's nest, driving off or devouring 

 the rightful proprietor. 



.]/. pennanti, the Pekan or Pennant's Marten, also called Fisher 

 Marten, though there appears to be nothing in its habits to justify 

 the appellation. This is the largest species of the group, the head 

 and body measuring from 24 to 30 inches, and the tail 14 to 18 

 inches. It is also more robust in form than the others, its general 

 aspect being more that of a Fox than a Weasel ; in fact, its usual 

 name among the American hunters is " Black Fox." Its general 

 colour is blackish, lighter by mixture of brown or gray on the head 

 and upper fore part of the body, with no light patch on the throat, 

 and unlike the other Martens generally darker below than above. 

 It was generally distributed in wooded districts throughout the 

 greater part of North America, as far north as Great Slave Lake, 

 63 N. lat., and Alaska, and extending south to the parallel of 35; 

 but at the present time it is almost exterminated in the settled parts 

 of the United States east of the Mississippi. 



Fossil remains of a Marten from the Pliocene Siwaliks of India 

 indicate a species which cannot be distinguished from those now 

 inhabiting the same region ; while remains of M. martes occur in 

 European cavern-deposits, and in the fens of Cambridgeshire. 



With the Putoriine group (genus Putorius) we come to those 



