NORTH .AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES 171 



trap more or less every winter for them, but the annual catch 

 seldom exceeds 40 skins. According to the fur traders these 

 martens are short-haired and light-colored and do not com- 

 mand so high a price as do those from the mainland. On 

 Vancouver Island they seem to be "fairly common in the 

 higher mountains " (Swarth, 1912). 



While martens are absent from the treeless parts of western 

 United States, they are common in many areas of forest, in 

 spite of much trapping. Vernon Bailey (1918) wrote two 

 decades ago that in the Glacier National Park region of north- 

 western Montana "they are probably as common in the park 

 as anywhere in the country, but no animal with the price on 

 its skin that they have long maintained could well be numerous 

 or very common. For at least half a century the park region 

 has been famous for the number of martens caught each year 

 by trappers . . . The animals are reported to be more 

 common on the west slope of the mountains than on the east, 

 but this is probably because the timber there is more dense and 

 extensive and it has not been possible to trap them out so 

 thoroughly . . . Steel traps are generally employed, but 

 many deadfalls of the ordinary type are used." He recom- 

 mends that "special permits to reliable parties for trapping 

 them in the park during a limited season when they become 

 too numerous would probably control their numbers here, 

 while outside the park there is no danger of their ever becoming 

 too abundant." They were reported common in the nineties 

 in the Salmon River and Saw Tooth Mountains of Idaho by 

 Merriam, who says that prospectors even complained that 

 martens would carry off their meat from camp. Southward, 

 the Rocky Mountain marten (subspecies origenes) seems to be 

 still fairly common throughout the forested areas into northern 

 Colorado and in smaller numbers into the higher mountain 

 forests of the northern part of New Mexico. Gary (1911) 

 writes that from 1900 to 1905 the best regions for martens in 

 Colorado were the mountain ranges surrounding Middle and 

 North Parks, the Williams River Mountains, and the moun- 

 tains south of Aspen, Pitkin County. They were reported 

 common on the Park Range but very rare on the Medicine 

 Bow Range. "A conservative estimate of the annual catch 

 in the Middle and North Park region would be 100 skins." 

 Fur buyers at Aspen estimated about the same for their dis- 



