no 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



counts of animals at times, could, upon other occa- 

 sions and with equal facility, tell the truth. He once 

 had op|K)rtunity to obsexve a captive wolverene, and 

 his account of it is as follows: "He was so tame that 

 he discovered no ferocity, and did not injure any per- 

 son. His voracity has been as much exaggerated as 

 his ferocity ; he ate. indeed, a great deal, but when de- 

 prived of food he was not importunate. He is rather 

 wild; avoids water, and moves with a kind of a leap. 

 After eating he covers himself in the cage with straw; 

 in drinking he laps like a dog. H indulged, he would 

 devour more than four pounds of flesh in a day ; he 

 swallows his food voraciously, and almost without 

 chewing." This was undoubtedly an Old World speci- 

 men and one, too, with an unusually good temper, 

 which is by no means always the case. 



John Watts de Peyster, of New York, writing to 

 W. P. Dando, of London, 

 says: "You would be as- 

 tonished at the labour and 

 expense I have lavished in 

 gathering and reproducing 

 information respecting 

 these animals. I am aston- 

 shed at the ferocity of your 

 specimen, because I have 

 read in several works that 

 the carcajou becomes gen- 

 tle and responsive to kind- 

 ness, even affectionate, and 

 learns to moderate his glut- 

 tonous appetite in captiv- 

 ity. Through the kindness 

 md courtesy of different of- 

 ficials of the principal mu- 

 seums of the world, I have 

 obtained photographs of 

 the wolverene, or carcajou, 

 or glutton, taken from 

 stuffed specimens ; but the 

 photographs you kindly 

 sent me are unique, as your 

 institution contains the 

 only living specimen of 

 which I have been able to learn, in any institution in 

 America or on the continent of Europe." 



Dando says, in regard to the cage in which this ani- 

 mal was kept at the "Zoo," that its depth from back to 

 front was so shallow that "unless the animal is right 

 against the farthest wall a good photograph is impos- 

 sible. I was two days getting^ the results shown, as the 

 animal got into a most violent rage, foaming at the mouth 

 at the sight of the camera, and continued his violent 

 movements and antics for hours together every time I 

 approached the cage, until, overcome by exhaustion, he 

 flung himself down for a second in the position shown, 

 rewarding me for my patience with two representative 

 poses." 



By far the best account I have been able to find of 



the habits of the wolverene is by Sir John Richard- 

 son, who says: "The wolverene is a carnivorous animal, 

 which feeds principally upon the carcasses of beasts that 

 have been killed by accident. It has great strength and 

 annoys the natives by destroying their hoards of provi- 

 sions and demolishing their marten traps. It is so sus- 

 picious that it will rarely enter a trap itself, but, begin- 

 ning behind, scatters the logs of which it is built, and 

 then carries off the bait. It feeds also on meadow mice, 

 marmots and other rodents, and occasionally on other 

 disabled quadrupeds of a larger size. I have seen one 

 chasing an American hare, which was at the same time 

 harassed by a snowy owl. It resembles the bear in its gait 

 and is much abroad in the winter, and the track of its 

 journey in a single night may be traced for miles." 



"The wolverenes are extremely mischievous," says 

 another writer, "and do more damage to the fur trade 



than all the other rapacious 

 animals conjointly. They 

 will follow the marten- 

 hunter's path round a line 

 of traps extending forty, 

 fifty, or sixty miles, and 

 render the whole unserv- 

 iceable, merely to come at 

 the baits, which are gen- 

 erally the head of a part- 

 ridge or a bit of dried veni- 

 son. They are not fond of 

 the martens themselves, 

 but never fail of tearing 

 them to pieces, or of burj'- 

 ing them in the snow by 

 the side of the path, at a 

 considerable distance from 

 the trap. So pertinaceous, 

 indeed, are these animals in 

 quest of slaughtered car- 

 casses that they have been 

 known to gnaw through a 

 tliick log of wood, and to 

 dig a hole several feet in 

 frozen ground in order to 

 gain access to the body of 

 a deer concealed by hunters. Another very curious pro- 

 pensity of the glutton is its habit of stealing and carry- 

 ing away to some distance articles which can be of no 

 possible use to it, and an instance is recorded where these 

 animals removed and concealed the whole paraphernalia 

 of an unoccupied hunter's lodge, including such articles 

 as guns, axes, knives, cooking vessels and blankets." 



Experienced hunters and trappers in the West claim 

 that a big wolverene may weigh as much as sixty pounds, 

 but that fifty pounds is the more usual weight. They are 

 very tenacious of life, and instances are on record where- 

 the animal has been shot through and through the chest, 

 and not succumbed to the wound. In such cases, of 

 course, the heart is not penetrated, and none of the large 

 vessels divided. They nearly always travel about and 



CAPTIVE WOLVERENE POSING FOR HIS PICTURE 



The photograph from which this cut was made was taken by 

 Mr. Elwin R. Sanborn, the official photographer of the New 

 York Zoological Society, who has made so many wonderful ani- 

 mal photographs in the Bronx Zoological Park, New York City. 



