MAMMALS. 249 



Biographical notes. — The Wolverine is one of the most detested animals found in all the fur 

 country. Its life is a continual warfare against all living things, and every man's hand is against 

 it. They invariably steal the bait from traps whenever they have the opportunity, and very rarely 

 do they get caught Should they find an animal in the trap they make short work of it, and in 

 Northern Alaska, as elsewhere in the fur country, they sometimes take up a line of traps so persis- 

 tently that the hunter is forced to abandon it and look for a new route. They frequently fol- 

 low a sledge party in the interior for days, visiting every camp as soon as it is abandoned, in order 

 to pick up the scraps left, and anything left in a tree for safe-keeping is sure to be destroyed if 

 the Wolverine can get at it. The fur traders usually outwit them by a very simple plan. They 

 place the articles they wish to leave in a tree, and then remove the outer bark of the tree for 6 or 

 6 feet from the ground. The frost renders the smooth, bare trunk so hard that the animal's claws 

 cannot obtain a hold and he is unable to climb the tree in consequence. Their greediness over- 

 matches their cunning at times, and a fur trader told me of an instance where a returning trapper 

 caught one of them in his cabin so gorged upon the dried meat he had found that he was unable to 

 escape through the chimney, by which he had entered, and so died ignominiously at the hands of 

 the enraged hunter. It is almost impossible to render a provision cache safe from them if it is left 

 for any considerable length of time. 



I was assured by a fur trader who passed many years on the Kuskoquim that during very 

 severe winters, when the ponds freeze so that the beavers are confined to a narrow space about 

 their houses, the Wolverines sometimes dig through the roofs of the beavers' houses and kill the 

 inmates. 



Marten trappers sometimes mourn the destruction of an entire set of traps in a day, and when 

 one of these pests is caught there is great satisfaction. 



The Yukon Indians have a superstitious dread of this animal, and on one occasion that came 

 to my hearing a hunter found a Wolverine caught and hung between heaven and earth in one of 

 his lynx-traps, about which the Wolverine had been prowling. Such an unusual occurrence as 

 this at once aroused the Indian's suspicions of bad medicine, for who ever heard of a Wolverine 

 being caught in so simple a trap ! Straightway the Indian returned home, and a grave consul- 

 tation was held among the elders of the village. It was finally decided that the hunter might 

 take the animal from the snare, but to avert possible bad consequences he was instructed to abuse 

 the white men all of the time, so as to make the spirit of the Wolverine believe it was owing to 

 their agency that he had been trapped. The hunter then returned with a companion to the trap 

 and removed the animal, repeating as he did so nearly his entire stock of English in saying 



"G d the Americans, G d the Americans," over and over again until well away 



from the accursed spot. 



The Wolverine is found over the entire mainland of Alaska, but is most numerous about the 

 headwaters of the Yukon and Kuskoquim Elvers. They are not rare wherever spruce timber 

 occurs, but are very uncommon on the open coast barrens, although they occur there, and extend 

 their range north to the extreme limit of the mainland at times. 



Although their tracks are among the most common ones seen when traveling in the wooded 

 interior of the country in winter, yet the animal is always invisible, and ever on the alert to reap 

 some gai"" from the visitor to his domain. 



The Eskimo prize the skin of this animal very highly for trimming their fur clothing, and one 

 good skin about equals in value a fine gray wolf-skin. 



This animal figures in the Eskimo folk-lore, always typifying combined cunning and prowess, 

 and it is one of their totemic animals. 



The skins of this species exhibit an almost endless amount of variation, specimens from the 

 Upper Yukon averaging very much darker than those from nearer the Eering Sea and Arctic coast. 



LuTKA CANADENSIS (Turton). North American Otter (Esk. Tsm-Ttulc). 



There is nothing especially noteworthy in the four skulls of this species contained in the col- 

 lection under consideration. One, No. 21482, is rather large, having a length of llS""", but is sur- 

 passed in size by other specimens in the National Museum collection. No. 21480, though much 

 S Mis. 156 32 



