THE SABLE. 337 



a life of carnage and rapine. When she leads them from the 

 nest into the woods, the birds at once distinguish their enemies, 

 and attend them, as we before observed of the fox, with all 

 the marks of alarm and animosity. Wherever the Martin 

 conducts her young, a flock of small birds are seen threatening 

 and insulting her, alarming every thicket, and often directing 

 the hunter in his pursuit. These animals are found in all 

 the northern parts of the world, from Siberia to China and 

 Canada. In every country they are hunted for their furs, 

 which are very valuable, and chiefly so when taken in the 

 beginning of winter. The most esteemed parts of the Martin's 

 skin is that part of it which is browner than the rest, and 

 stretches along the back-bone. Thousands of these skins are 

 annually imported into England from Hudson's Bay and 

 Canada. 



THE SABLE. 



Most of the classes of the Weasel kind would have continued 

 utterly unknown and disregarded, were it not for their furs, 

 which are finer, more glossy, and soft, than those of any other 

 quadruped. Their dispositions are fierce and untameable ; 

 their scent generally offensive ; and their figure disproportioned 

 and unpleasing. The knowledge of one or two of them 

 would, therefore, have sufficed curiosity ; and the rest would 

 probably have been confounded together under one common 

 name, as things useless and uninteresting, had not their skins 

 been coveted by the vain, and considered as capable of adding 

 to human magnificence or beauty. 



Of all these, however, the skin of the Sable is the most 

 coveted, and held in the highest esteem. It is of a brownish 

 black ; and the darker it is, it becomes the more valuable. A 

 single skin, though not above four inches broad, is often valued 

 at fifty or sixty dollars ; the fur differing from others in this, 

 that it has no grain ; so that rub it which way you will, it is 

 equally smooth and unresisting. Nevertheless, though this 

 little animal's robe was so much coveted by the great, its his- 

 tory till of late was but very little known ; and we are obliged 



