NORTH AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES 187 



has given them one of their common names . . . They are 

 said to have from two to four young." 



The fur of the wolverene is much in demand among the 

 Eskimo and other northern people for trimming their parkas, 

 especially the sides of the hood, for it has the peculiar charac- 

 teristic that the moisture from one's breath does not readily 

 freeze and cake on it. Bailey (1936) writes that the fur has 

 never brought high prices; the quotation for prime skins in 

 1923 was but $6 to $8, yet at this same time California trappers 

 received an average of $25 each for wolverene pelts. 



The wolverene is an animal of solitudes, usually found singly 

 and shunning the vicinity of human occupation, so that it 

 quickly vanishes with the spread of "civilization. " It is there- 

 fore a species that has already gone from a large part of its 

 former range in the United States and may be expected to sur- 

 vive only in the more remote wilderness areas of the North. 

 Of its occurrence in the northeastern States, very little record 

 remains. Audubon and Bachman (1846) nearly a century ago, 

 wrote that they had heard of its existence, "although very 

 sparingly," in Maine, and abou^t 1810 "we" (probably Bach- 

 man) had examined three skins in the possession of a merchant 

 in Lansingburg, N. Y., that were said to have come from the 

 Green Mountains of Vermont. While these do not constitute 

 certain evidence of the occurrence of the wolverene in New 

 England, it is possible that it was formerly found, as these 

 authors say, "very sparingly. " It should be recalled, however, 

 that the Canada lynx was sometimes called "wolverene" in 

 this region, so that hearsay reports have questionable value. 

 Nor can much credence be placed in a recent (1918) report of 

 wolverenes in northern New Hampshire (C. F. Jackson, 1922). 

 Even in New York State the wolverene must have been rare 

 over a century ago. The only records seem to be those of 

 Audubon and Bachman (based probably on the latter's obser- 

 vations) , who give a circumstantial account of the pursuit and 

 capture of one in Rensselaer County in 1810, the description 

 and measurements of which are detailed and form the basis of 

 Matschie's (1918) Gulo " auduboni"', and of a second examined 

 in 1827 that had been killed near Sacketts Harbor, Jefferson 

 County, near Lake Ontario. The most southerly record in the 

 East is that given by Rhoads, of a wolverene killed about 1858 

 near Great Salt Lick in Portage Township, Pennsylvania. 



