THE SABLE. 113 



and of a more obscure and dirty colour on the throat. Some of 

 these characters, it will be seen, are very trivial, and others sus- 

 ceptible of variation. The slight differences in the form of the 

 head are not greater than are found to exist in the same animal 

 at different ages 5 and the colour, as we have seen from Gmelin's 

 description, varies greatly in different individuals and in different 

 seasons. The woolliness of the toes, supposed to be peculiar 

 to the sable, had already been mentioned by Pennant in 

 his description of the [beech] marten, in some specimens of 

 which we have ourselves observed the same fact. And lastly, 

 even the comparative length of tail, on which the greatest stress 

 is laid, affords no absolute criterion ; for Pallas himself states, 

 that this organ is a little longer in the males, at least when young. 

 His authority must, however, be allowed to overweigh all such 

 considerations , and to indicate the existence of a true sable, as 

 a distinct species from the martens, although unknown to later 

 zoologists. It is certainly not a little singular that an animal so 

 highly valued and so anxiously sought after, should still be a 

 desideratum to the scientific world ; but it is perhaps no less so 

 that the opinion which has been so lightly adopted with respect 

 to such well known animals as the indigenous martens, should 

 never yet have been put to the test of direct experiment."* 



Professor Bell says, that he has found " in the examination 

 of numbers of the finest sable skins, that the yellow patch on 

 the throat had always an irregular outline, and that there were 

 also small spots of the same fine colour scattered on the sides 

 of the neck;" and he adds that, he has never observed this 

 distribution of colour either on the beech-marten or pine-marten, 

 and he mentions the fact merely as one which, combined with 

 other characters, may possibly assist in deciding the question 

 of specific difference when we have gained fuller information on 

 the subject. 



* Zoological Gardens Delineated (1831), p. 240. 



