WEASEL FAMILY. 



55 



villages ; their favourite resort being the depths of the forest least frequented by 

 the natives. It is considered that the most inaccessible and least known parts of 

 the country are the best hunting-grounds. They live on hares, birds of all kinds, 

 and, in short, almost every living thing they can kill, but they are also said to eat 

 berries, and even fish. There are, indeed, but few animals, apparently, which do 

 not live on fish in Kamschatka. They have only one litter during the year, 

 generally in the month of April, and bring forth four or five young at a birth in 

 a nest in the holes of trees. The same writer tells us that whereas formerly a 

 large number of sables were caught in traps in Kamschatka, they are now more 

 generally hunted there with dogs ; these dogs being specially trained for the 

 purpose, and either running down their quarry on the deep snow, driving them 

 into trees, or smelling them out when lying asleep in holes. The great object in 



4:\ <^r'-^ --.?=* -=^Ss--^i-- 



<Y^ 



THE SABLE (| nat. size). 



such hunts is to " tree " the sable, when the tree is surrounded with nets, and the 

 animal either shaken from. the boughs or knocked off them by means of poles. If 

 the sable does not fall into the nets, it is again pursued by the expectant dogs, 

 by whom it is either run down, or once more " treed." When the tree is too high 

 to allow of the sable being dislodged by the usual methods, it is either felled, or 

 the animal is shot ; but recourse to guns is if possible avoided, as the shot does 

 damage to the skins. If the distance they have to travel be a long one, the 

 Kamschatkan hunters start on their winter expeditions after the sable towards 

 the end of September ; but, if the district is nearer, they wait until the first fall 

 of snow or about six weeks afterwards. If a single hunter takes twenty sable 

 skins in a season, he considers himself fortunate ; but Dr. Guillemard mentions 

 that in a little-known district one party bagged upwards of 140 skins. The total 

 number annually taken in Kamschatka must be very large ; the number exported 

 in the year 1882 from Petropaulovsky (which receives the majority) being over 



