192 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



wolverene skins were produced, according to returns from 

 Canada (Journ. Soc. Preserv. Fauna Empire, p. 75, pi. 21, 

 1934). In 1934 the fur yield of the Northwest Territories in- 

 cluded 98 wolverenes (Cameron, 1936, p. 625). 



In 1936, the Chief of the U. S. Biological Survey urged a 

 five-year closed season on wolverenes in the United States and 

 a resolution to the same effect was adopted by the North 

 American Wildlife Conference at Washington, D. C., shortly 

 after, in the hope of saving the species from complete extermi- 

 nation within the United States. That Alaska is nearly the 

 center of the wolverene's abundance at the present time is 

 indicated by the fact that according to the report of the 

 Biological Survey, 248 skins were taken in Alaska in 1938. 

 No reports of it are given for other States. 



WEST COAST WOLVERENE; SOUTHERN WOLVERENE 



GULO LTJSCUS LUTEUS Elliot 



Gulo luteus Elliot, Field Columbian Mus. Publ., zool. ser., vol. 3, p. 260, Dec., 1903 



(27 miles south of Mount Whitney, Tulare County, California). 

 FIGS.: Grinnell, Dixon, and Linsdale, 1937, vol. 1, pi. 6 (col.), text-figs. 91-97. 



An excellent account of the characters and habits of this race 

 is that given by Grinnell, Dixon, and Linsdale (1937), summing 

 up present knowledge of the wolverene in California. It was 

 named by Elliot in 1903 as a separate species differing in its 

 supposedly paler coloration as compared with eastern animals. 

 The authors quoted show, however, that this was "merely a 

 feature of a young stage of pelage" and that in the original 

 description not a single character given is diagnostic of the 

 race, which may only be distinguished by skull characters, 

 namely, "skulls from California are slightly smaller than 

 skulls of corresponding ages from Hudson Bay, Alberta, 

 British Columbia, and Alaska, and the dentition is noticeably 

 and uniformly lighter in particular the carnassials are de- 

 cidedly less massive. Three examples from Idaho and one 

 from Utah, in the National Museum, are small-toothed like 

 the California skulls." A Montana and a Minnesota skull are 

 said to be of intermediate size, while one from Chelan, Wash., 

 is "nearer the average of Sierran luteus" 



The range of this race may thus be taken to include the 

 Sierras of California northward to Washington, merging by 



