196 The Naturalist in Silaria. 



to timber, and appears to be the better climber, though 

 both are eminently scansorial. Indeed, to talk of their 

 climbing is to use a very unfit phrase, since these weasels 

 are as much at home upon the branches as the squirrel 

 itself, and can not only run nimbly along them, but spring 

 from one to the other, even from tree to tree ; a fact I 

 believe not generally known, at least I have never met 

 mention of it in zoological works. It is just for this 

 purpose nature has provided them with such a develop- 

 ment of tail, long and bushy as that of the squirrel ; not 

 prehensile, but for balance and guidance, as the train to 

 a paper kite, or the pole of the rope-dancer. Aided by 

 this, and other anatomical peculiarities of structure, the 

 marten not only passes safely from one tree to another, 

 but, if needs must, can spring off from the highest, down 

 to the earth, unharmed, as though it had made the peri- 

 lous descent upon wings. As is well known, this remark- 

 able, and indeed somewhat inexplicable, feat is common 

 to most species of squirrels. In the American forests I 

 have witnessed it hundreds of times; seen these creatures 

 precipitate themselves from the tops of trees nearly a 

 hundred feet high, drop lightly on the ground, and with- 

 out a moment's pause shoot off like a "streak of 

 lightning." 



That our martens can do the same, or almost as much, 

 I have reason to know, from many instances in proof; 

 among others, one lately furnished me by a friend resi- 

 dent in a western shire, answering certain inquiries I had 

 addressed to him. As his letter gives some curious de- 

 tails of hunting the marten with hounds, I will lay that 

 portion of it before the reader, quoting his own words. 

 Thus writes he : 



" I am sorry to say it is not in my power to give 



