CULTURE OF FUR-BEARERS = 245 
The ermine and his family. Naturalists 
distinguish over 20 species and subspecies 
of weasel in North America. Most of them, 
however, belong to the West and far North, 
and they differ little in general character; 
such peculiarities as belong to each Dr. C. 
Hart Merriam, their monographer, connects 
with their food. Thus he finds that the group 
represented by our common eastern species 
(Putorius cicognani) flourishes only in the 
country where the meadow-mice abound; the 
large western weasel (P. longicauda), does not 
range much outside of the region inhabited by 
the pocket-gophers; the black-footed one (P. ni- 
gripes} frequents only the prairie-dog country 
southward; and ‘‘in the far North, where 
the frozen tundras are inhabited by lemmings 
as well as voles, two weasels are present: the 
tiny, narrow-skulled ‘rixosus,’ which feeds 
mainly on mice, and the large, broad-skulled 
‘arcticus’ (analogue of the true ermine) on 
lemmings and rabbits.’’ With these fine points 
of classification we need not here concern our- 
selves. A weasel, in the Old World or in the 
