EDWAKD BURGESS. 73 



inches above our heads, in order to secure a piece of 

 meat. Dr. Kae vouches, under his own signature, for 

 the absolute accuracy of this story. That part of it 

 relating to the cutting of the string is confirmed by an 

 entirely independent authority. In a monograph of the 

 North American Mustelidse, by Captian Elliot Cones, 

 contained in the miscellaneous publications of the 

 United States Geological Survey, 1877, the writer gives a 

 similar instance to illustrate the sagacity of the wolverine. 

 A trapper found a wolverine at work on his marten 

 traps, of which he had from a hundred to a hundred and 

 fifty. The animal approached the traps from behind, 

 ate the bait, and even carried off the sticks and buried 

 them, for the wolverine has a great propensity to steal 

 everything he can carry off, whether it is useful to him 

 or not. The trapper made up his mind that he must 

 either kill that wolverine or quit trapping in that 

 section of the country, so he set six strong wooden traps 

 and four steel ones, but all to no purpose. The creature 

 secured the bait and broke the traps to pieces without 

 being injured himself. He then placed some bait with 

 a string attached to the hammer of a gun, the same sort 

 of a contrivance which Dr. Rae used, and with the same 

 result. The wolverine went back of the gun, cut the string 

 with his teeth just behind the muzzle, carried off the 

 bait, and ate it at his leisure on the frozen lake below as 

 his tracks showed. He tried it again, thinking it im- 

 possible that this could have been intentionally done, 

 and with the same result — with this difference only, 

 that each time, the animal cut the line behind the knot, 

 evidently suspecting some danger in the knot itself. 

 After repeating the experiment a number of times, the 

 hunter gave up the contest and moved away with his 

 traps. Outwitting their enemies, in this triumphant 

 fashion, it is plain could never have been accomplished 

 by inherited instinct. Instinct had made no provision 



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