ANIMAL LIFE IN LABEADOE 435 



berries, and will occasionally catch fish in the ponds and 

 pools. Many attempts have been made to keep them as 

 pets, and I did succeed in keeping two for quite a long 

 period. The general experience is, however, that they re- 

 main bears, and are not to be trusted. They have a habit 

 of playfully hitting with their paws, and their long nails 

 inflict very nasty scratches. I have had more than one 

 experience of this. 



Gulo luscus L. The wolverine is considered by all our 

 trappers as the wiliest of our wood folk. He will reach 

 under a trap and turn it over so that it will go off safely, 

 almost every time. Rather than go into a lynx house by 

 the open door, which is of course guarded by a leg trap, 

 he will dig down under the back of it, and come up inside, 

 and thus get what he wants, viz. the bait. He is far the 

 most persistent trap robber. Not satisfied with having 

 eaten all he needs, he will take a marten out of a trap and 

 bury it, and then following the man's trail all along the fur 

 path, he will rob any and all of the other traps as he passes. 

 The Indians have a tradition that the wolverine never eats 

 a marten, but simply steals them out of wantonness and 

 buries them. I have known of one of these beasts stealing 

 fourteen marten at one time, and these were suspended in a 

 tilt. In the same way he will climb a tree and rob a 

 scaffolded cache of food. Their endurance is perfectly re- 

 markable. An old wolverine was caught by the fore leg 

 in a steel " jumper" trap at Paradise; fourteen days later 

 he was sighted and shot at Dove Brook, a good twenty-five 

 miles away. The steel trap and chain were still on the 

 poor beast's leg, which was not frozen. When first seen 

 he was carrying the trap in his mouth, and quite a large 



