7700 Quadrupeds. 



movemenls it greatly resembles the Ursus americanus, as well as in 

 the consistency and length of its fur ; its walk, however, is not near so 

 plantigrade as that of the latter animal, as is evident from an inspec- 

 tion of the soles of its feet, which are densely covered with hair. The 

 head is broad and rounded, and the nose not so acute as in members 

 of the genus Mustela; the eyes are small and far apart; the ears low 

 and rounded, thickly covered on the outside with a long soft fur which 

 nearly conceals them ; the whiskers are comparatively short, stiff and 

 not numerous; and there are over each eye sparse tufts of similar 

 hairs. 



The body is long and stout, of great muscular power, and formed 

 more for strength than activity. The feet are larger in proportion 

 than those of any other species of the subfamily Martinas, and are 

 armed with strong claws, well curved and more than an inch in length. 



The skin which I propose now to describe is that of a female killed 

 in last March : it is that of an average sized animal, whose coloration 

 also is of the ordinary shades, and may be accepted with great pro- 

 priety as a type of the species as found in this district. The pelage 

 in winter is formed of a soft woolly under fur, tolerably fine and about 

 an inch deep and overlaid by larger and coarser hairs, which are about 

 three inches long on the rump, but shortening gradually towards the 

 head, where they measure only half an inch. The feet are large and 

 broad, the hind feet larger than the fore feet, and all densely covered 

 with mingled fur and hair, about three-fourths of an inch in depth ; 

 the balls of the toes are naked, but from the thickness of the coverings 

 of the feet they leave no impression upon the snow ; by careful ex- 

 amination three additional small bare pads will be discovered on each 

 foot ; the nails are strong, sharp, well curved, white, and upwards of 

 an inch in length, those of the fore feet being, if anything, the stronger, 

 though there is little difference either in length or shortness. Com- 

 paratively speaking the tail is rather short, very bushy, particularly 

 towards the end, which has the appearance of a piece cut off; the fur 

 covering it is of the same kind as that on the body, but the under fur 

 is not so thick, and there are more of the coarse hairs, which are here 

 from five inches long at the root to six at the tip. The colour of the 

 fur varies much, according to the season and age ; the younger animals 

 are invariably darker in the shadings than the old, which exhibit more 

 of the gray markings. In the specimen under consideration the back 

 from the nape of the neck to the rump is a dark blackish brown, per- 

 ceptibly lighter on the neck and shoulders. From the fore leg a stripe 

 of yellowish brown, about three inches broad, sweejjs round each side. 



