186 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



it killed the rats harboring there. " As to its prospects for the 

 future he writes: "With the occupation of the country and the 

 inevitable extinction of the prairie-dog over nearly or quite all 

 of its range, the black-footed ferret is practically certain to 

 disappear with its host species," a sad prophecy for this re- 

 markable and useful animal! 



WOLVERENE; GLUTTON; "CARCAJOU" 

 GULO LUSCTJS LUSCUS (Linnaeus) 



Ursus luscus Linnaeus, Systema Naturae, ed. 12, vol. 1, p. 71, 1766 (Hudson Bay). 

 Gulo auduboni Matschie, Sitzb. Ges. Naturf. Freunde Berlin, 1918, p. 153 (Rensselaer 



County, New York). 



Gulo bairdi Matschie, op. cit., p. 153, 1918 (Fort Union, North Dakota). 

 FIGS.: Elliot, 1901, pi. 36 (photographs of skull); Nelson, 1916, p. 428 (col.); 



Anderson, 1935, p. 87 (photograph). 



The wolverene is the largest of the weasel family and an 

 animal of boreal evergreen forests and barrens. It is repre- 

 sented by closely similar races in the northern parts of the Old 

 World, and although several forms have been named from 

 North America it is very doubtful if their validity can be main- 

 tained, or if at best some of them are more than slight sub- 

 species of the Hudson Bay animal. 



Audubon and Bachman describe a specimen from New York 

 State as blackish brown, with a pale reddish brown band ex- 

 tending from behind the shoulder to the rump on each side. 

 These two bands join across the rump, and form a contrasting 

 though not sharply defined light stripe. There is another pale 

 brownish- white band from the eye to the ear on each side. 

 The fur is long and rather shaggy. The head and body measure 

 some two feet nine inches in length, the short tail eight inches. 

 The animal stands about a foot high at the shoulders, and 

 weighs 25 to 36 pounds. 



Much has been written of the wolverene in the North, of its 

 great strength in proportion to its size, and of its habit of 

 breaking into the caches of hunters or trappers and spoiling 

 what part of the provisions it can not eat. Vernon Bailey 

 (1926) writes: "Wolverenes are found mainly within timbered 

 sections of the country, but are great wanderers and at times 

 may strike out over open country in search of new hunting 

 grounds. They are omnivorous hunters and scavengers and 

 have the reputation of being gorging gluttons, a fact which 



