7792 Quadrupeds. 



and burying them in the snow. By following the animal's foot-prints 

 those hidden stores can be recovered, but in general quite uneatable, 

 as the wolverine, to protect its secret hoards from the attacks of other 

 beasts of prey, besprinkles all his larder plentifnlly with his urine, 

 which has a strong and most disagreeable odour, and proves a good 

 preservative in most cases. But the desire for accumulating property 

 seems so deeply implanted by nature in this animal that, like tame 

 ravens, it does not appear to care much what it steals, so that it can 

 exercise its favourite propensity to commit mischief. An instance 

 occurred within my own knowledge in which a hunter and his family, 

 having left their lodge unguarded during their absence, on their return 

 found it completely gutted ; the walls were there, bnt nothing else : 

 blankets, guns, kettles, axes, cans, knives, and all the other parapher- 

 nalia of a trapper's tent, had vanished, and the tracks left by the beast 

 showed who had been the thief. The family set to work, and by care- 

 fully following up all his paths recovered, with some trifling exceptions, 

 the whole of the lost property. The damage which it does to a trap- 

 ping road is very great ; indeed, if the animal cannot be killed, it is as 

 well to abandon it, as he will not only break the traps and eat the bait 

 or animals caught, but also, out of sheer malice, will carry away the 

 sticks and hide them at some distance. To kill or catch it is very 

 difficult : an old stager is a regular bugbear to the Indians. " Master," 

 said one to me in his own language, " I can't hunt furs; the wolverine 

 eats the martens and baits, and smashes my traps ; I put a steel trap 

 for him, he got in, but released himself by screwing off the nuts con- 

 fining the spring with his teeth. I set a gun ; he cut the cord attached 

 to the trigger, ate the bait, and broke the stock. What shall I do?" 

 As the infallible strychnia had not then made its appearance in these 

 parts I could offer him neither advice nor assistance, and but little 

 consolation. 



American Otter [Liitra canadensis). — Length about 4|- feet. Muzzle 

 longer than wide, sending down a naked point along the median line 

 of the upper lips anteriorly. Under surfaces of the feet so covered with 

 hair towards the circumference as completely to isolate the naked pads 

 of the tips. A hairy strip extending forward from beneath the carpus 

 on the palm. Colour above liver-brown, barely lighter beneath ; in- 

 ferior surface and sides of head dirty whitish. 



In appearance the otter is a magnified mink : its walk, fur and colour 

 bear strong similitudes to those of the latter animal, and the lightening 

 of the tints of the pelage in old age is the same in both. Its fur is 



