CHAPTER VII. 



PURBY FRIEXDS WITH PINE SKINS. 

 The Wolverene, Fisher, and Marten or Sable. 



It is a question whether we are justified in con- 

 sidering the strange wo] verene a ixirrj friend. From 

 one point of ^-iew he is, as his splendid coat furnishes 

 us with one of the finest and most beautiful furs of 

 the country. But he is certainly not a familiar crea- 

 ture among the northern woods in these days ; long 

 years ago he was practically extinct in the northeast- 

 ern States.* 



Dr. Clinton Hart Merriara writes that several were 

 caught at Raquette Lake, in the Adirondacks, as late 

 as 1842. Elliott Coues mentions the fact that a Dr. 

 Z. Thomson, writing in 1853, states that the animal 

 was then extremely rare in Vermont ; and Mr. Allen 

 asserts that as late as 1870 it still lingered among 

 the Hoosac hills in Massachusetts. At the present 



* His most southerly range is about latitude 43° for the east- 

 em portion of the continent. 

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