168 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



Zoology secured from trappers by J. D. Sornborger about 1900. 

 The Labrador wilderness is not much penetrated by outside 

 trappers, and the supply of fur is likely to hold out for a long 

 time to come. The Newfoundland race, however, is said now 

 to be very much reduced. In northern New England martens 

 were formerly much trapped in the Maine Woods and the 

 White Mountains and are still found but in smaller numbers. 

 A century ago Emmons (1840) wrote that the pine marten was 

 to be found in the mountainous parts of the Berkshires, in 

 Massachusetts, especially in beech woods, and describes the 

 method of trapping it in deadfalls. At that time, he states, 

 the pelts were worth 90 cents to $1.1^. Probably martens 

 have been extinct in Massachusetts for many years, but they 

 still are found in the Vermont forests. Merriam regarded them 

 as common in the Adirondacks in 1882 and said that hundreds 

 were trapped for fur every winter; they still persist in smaller 

 numbers. The fur is prime early in November. Rhoads, 

 writing in 1903, makes the general statement that the marten 

 was "once abundant over all the mountain regions" of Penn- 

 sylvania and New Jersey, invading even the Nfoothills of the 

 Alleghenies, but was early exterminated fro^the latter 

 regions, was probably extinct in New Jersey aboutl&>0, and 

 at the beginning of this century was to be found only in the 

 forested parts of the mountains in Pennsylvania. South of 

 this area there seems to be no recent report of the marten's 

 presence. Rhoads (1903) in his account of the species in Penn- 

 sylvania states that there it was partial to hardwood forests 

 rather than evergreens. Reports from various of the counties 

 are nearly unanimous in telling of its former occurrence and its 

 later decline, and in most cases tell of none having been found 

 for a number of years. Rhoads points to the effect of forest 

 fires as bearing on the depletion of the stock. In Ohio, Brayton 

 (1882) mentions the marten as already extinct, and there is 

 apparently no evidence of its occurrence in Indiana within 

 recent years. Dr. H. H. T. Jackson (1908) regarded it as 

 practically extinct in Wisconsin 30 years ago and mentions one 

 taken in Vilas County as lately as 1904-5, but Cory (1912) 

 wrote that although "steadily declining in numbers" and then 

 "a comparatively rare animal" in Wisconsin it was still to be 

 found in the northern part of that State. It seems to be gone 

 from Illinois, though earlier recorded from Cook County by 



