484 BIG GAME OF NORTH AMERICA. 



to creamy-gray, and usually about two inches broad, 

 extends from the top of the base of the tail", along the 

 middle of each side, to the shoulders. Rarely, this stripe is 

 three inches broad, and almost white, and when thus found, 

 in connection with gray hairs throughout the dark of the 

 specimen, is an indication of old age. Most of the speci- 

 mens I have seen have had more or less gray upon the front 

 of the head, and small, irregular blotches of white upon the 

 throat and brisket. With the exception of the aforemen- 

 tioned light colors, the whole of the animal is a dark- 

 brown, shading into black upon the back and feet. A 

 specimen in the Chamber of Commerce library at Denver, 

 Colorado, from which our illustration is drawn, has a 

 gray stripe across the forehead, and large white blotches 

 on neck and chest, but the body-stripe is hardly distin- 

 guishable. 



Four adults taken at Trappers' Lake, Colorado, in the 

 winter of 1889, were beautifully marked, the broad, light- 

 colored bands contrasting magnificently with the surround- 

 ing dark and glossy fur. A specimen in the possession of 

 J. A. Murdock, an editor and naturalist of Pilot Mound, 

 Manitoba, has, in addition to the irregular throat-marks, 

 considerable white around the nose. Audubon says: "A 

 white stripe extends across the forehead;'' but this is by no 

 means regular. 



The fur of adults does not change color in winter. I 

 have never seen the very young, which are said to be quite 

 woolly and of a dirty-white color; neither have I been able 

 to find anyone who could say anything authentic concern- 

 ing them. As the oft-repeated ' 'dirty- white " color would 

 be something of an absurdity in nature, I do not accept it 

 readily, but, instead, believe the young to resemble the 

 parents; in which event, they would easily be mistaken for 

 young minks, sables, or possibly otters, by all except ana- 

 tomical naturalists. 



Notwithstanding its want of great agility, and the con 

 sequent apparent difficulty of procuring food in the bleak 

 North, the Wolverine is usually very fat. Thirty-five 



