GILPIN — ON NOVA SCOTIAN MAMMALS. 13 



frog is picked off in his hurried journeys from lake to lake, by 

 this bright eyed fisherman. 



This fur once valueless has steadily increased in price, till last 

 winter not seldom five dollars was paid for a single skin. Our 

 Indians trap but very little now. The idle boys about the 

 villages take many. The farmer indignant at his slaughtered 

 fowl yard, adds a few more skins. In every land and every 

 village, there is a social gypsey who loves sport and hates work ; 

 who fishes, and fowls, and traps, eats his own trout, or poached 

 salmon or moose meat, taken out of season, and exchanges his 

 little pile of fur for tea and tobacco at the country store. Many 

 come from this source. Thus a gathering pile collects and 

 dangles at the country store. The owner packs and sends them 

 to the Halifax market, where of late years it has become the 

 habit for the fur dealers to tender in writing for them. About 

 six thousand are annually exported from Nova Scotia proper. 



PuTORius CicoGNANii, {BonajpciHe,) Small Brown Weasel. 



Under this head I put the common weasel or ermine weasel of 

 the Province. From my notes its size and colour will be studied. 



Wm. Dargie, at Annapolis Royal, gave me 10th Nov. 1860, a weasel, 

 total leno-th to end of tail, 11 5-10 inch, lencrth of tail 4 9 10 inch. It was 

 in summer pelage, with short fur —in colour it was brown, with upper lip, 

 cheeks, inside of legs, side of belly two-thirds to back, front of hind legs and 

 belly beneath white, genitals white, the poenis with a bone, a deep sulphur, 

 stain along the belly. 



25 Nov., 1860, Mr. Melville, Hammond's Plains, near Halifax, gave me 

 one, total length to end of tail 11 1-10 inch, length of tail 3 6-10 inch, this 

 was in full winter pelage — fur thick, ears nearly hidden, feet well furred 

 and colour white, with black tip to the tail, a pale sulphur tinge on flanks and 

 belly. Thus I had two specimens within 10 days, one winter, one summer 

 pelage. 



28 Jan., 1861, Sgt. Kavanagh, Desertion Post, St. Margaret's Bay, 

 gave me the smallest specimen I have seen — -total length to end of tail, 

 10 1-2 inches, length of tail 3 1-10 inch. It was in winter pelage 



21 Feb., 1861, he sent me the largest specimen I have seen, from the 

 same out post- — total length to tip of tail 14 4-10 inches, total length of tail 

 4 8-10 inches. It was in full winter pelage — fur very thick, and limbs very 

 robust. Both white with a yellow tinge on flanks, tip of tail black. 



Thus it appears that the ordinary weasel of the Province 

 may be referred to P. Oicognanii, (Bonaparte,) P. Fusca, 

 (Audubon, DeKay.) That he attains a larger size here than the 

 southern species, but preserves the relative proportion of tail 



