MAMMALS OF NORTHEEN CANADA 207 



the sale amounted to 131,170 skins. I think the best since the 

 transfer of the country to Canada was in 1870. The total 

 for each of the eight years last mentioned was 81,706, 52,308, 

 55,453, 60,455, 66,841, 66,750, 83,43,9, a,nd 81,174, respect- 

 ively. The aggregate total sales of martens for the twenty- 

 five years amounted to no less than 2,590,691 skins. In 

 1902, the Company sold 56,491, and in 1903, 76,629 marten 

 skins in London. 



The two best and most successful months for the trapping 

 of this valuable animal are November and March, while 

 comparatively few are taken during December, January, 

 February, and April. Severely cold weather is not a, favour- 

 able factor in hunting, for the reason that at such times 

 martens do not roam as much as on other occasions. The 

 sexes begin to copulate in February, and the process is 

 continiied to the end of March, according to situation or other 

 circumstances. For some time afterwards, martens are more 

 easily captured than at almost any other period of the season. 

 The young are blind and helpless when born, but shortly 

 acquire sight and strength. They make their nests in hollow 

 trees, or under fallen timber, and in holes in the ground. 



. Comparatively few skins were obtained from the country 

 north of Fort Anderson, but in the forest region to the south 

 martens were fairly abundant in some years. The writer 

 has seen several albino examples, and also a considerable 

 nunuber of bright yellow and dark orange colored martens in 

 his time, particularly while stationed in the districts of 

 Mackenzie River and Athabasca. In the month of February, 

 1890, Albert Flett, then chief of the Cumberland House band 

 of Cree Indians, brought me a large male marten somewhat 

 different from any that I had previously met with or specially 

 noticed. After it was properly skinned and prepared, it was 

 forwarded to the Smithsonian Institution at Washington. 

 I think the chief told me that he had trapped it in the Pas 

 Mountain, some 60 or 70 miles to the southward of Cumber- 

 land House. He also informed me that he had seen several 

 14 



