THE SABLE. Ill 



animal itself in the possession of Dr. Charlton. Its size was 

 that of a cat of Cyprus ; its colour a dark tawny j the fore-part 

 of its head and its ears of a whitish ash-colour j and the bristles 

 on its eyebrows, nose, and face, very long." 



Pennant's history of the sable is more copious than that of 

 previous naturalists, being partly taken from an account of the 

 animal given by John George Gmelin, in 1760 in the Memoirs of 

 the Petersburgh Academy, and partly from Miiller's Collection of 

 Russian Histories, published in German, and containing many 

 commercial particulars concerning it. 



Though the sable is noticed by Albertus Magnus, George 

 Bauer (Agricola), Gesner, Aldrovand, Jonston, Ray, Linnaeus, 

 Klein, Brisson, Buffon, Daubenton, and Pennant, yet none of 

 these authors speak of it as an animal which they knew other- 

 wise than by report. " It is said by most of them to inhabit not 

 only Northern Asia and Russia, but Poland also, Scandinavia, 

 and even Lapland. These latter habitats may, however, probably 

 be considered as indicating nothing more than the countries 

 through the medium of which the skins called sables were pro- 

 cured. The only two naturalists who have described this animal 

 from personal observation, are J. G. Gmelin and Pallas, both of 

 whom became acquainted with it while travelling in Siberia, 

 to which country its range is expressly limited by the latter. 

 The first of these writers had an opportunity of examining two 

 specimens in the palace of the Governor of Siberia at Tobolsk, 

 where they were kept alive for an entire year. He describes 

 them as resembling the martens in their form and habit of body; 

 the one being throughout the winter of an ashy black, cinereous 

 on the chin, and yellowish round the ears ; the other smaller, 

 and of a yellowish brown, becoming somewhat paler on the chin 

 and ears. On the approach of spring, the former animal became 

 yellowish brown, and the latter pale yellow. A figure of the 

 darker coloured specimen accompanies the account, and well 

 deserves the epithet ' pessima ' applied to it by Pallas. It affords 

 no assistance in the discrimination of the species ; but has, 

 nevertheless, been copied in the Encyclopedic Methodique and 



