NOTES ON ADIRONDACK MAMMALS. 329 



Scotia and eastern Canada, on the other hand, it is considered almost a crime to 

 wantonly destroy a porcupine, as it is the only animal which a lost and starving 

 man can kill with a club. 



The quills of the porcupine are exceedingly penetrating, and when once 

 inserted in an animal will work in between the skin and flesh, and sometimes 

 through the sinews to the uttermost parts of its anatomy. 



The puma and fisher are both credited with a fondness for porcupine meat, 

 and are said to pay a high price for it. The writer, however, does not believe 

 that either of them, unless starving, would attack this animal. 



The porcupine is a bark-eater with a special fondness for the hemlock, but 

 will make a meal of the bark of any of the conifers. In the Bitter Root Mountains 

 many of the spruces were found deeply scarred at the base, where the bark had been 

 stripped half way round the tree. This cutting was generally credited to the 

 porcupine, which is also very destructive around lumber camps, as it gnaws away 

 the floor logs to get at the salt left from the brine of the pork barrels. It is 

 one of the few creatures seen by the average tourist or visitor in the North 

 Woods, and the present foolish persecution of it should be stopped by law. 



The last and perhaps most important family or the fur-bearing animals in the 

 Adirondacks is the Mustelidae. This group includes a large and varied series 

 of animals, ranging in size from the pigmy weasel to the otter and wolverine. 



Least Weasel. 



The smallest member of the family is the least weasel (Putorius alleglieniensis) , 

 a diminutive and ferocious animal. Like most of the small carnivores it feeds on 

 mice, which it hunts tirelessly and with a relentless persistency which is almost 

 without parallel in the animal kingdom. 



Weasel. 



The true weasel or American ermine (Putorius noveboracensis), so called from its 

 fur turning white in the winter, is a large edition of the last species. It, too, preys 

 on mice and also on rats, grouse and squirrels. Its lack of agility, as in the case 

 of the least weasel, is more than compensated by the extraordinary pertinacity 

 with which it trails down its victims. This relentless chase ultimately wears out 

 the most active rat, and in the end the unfortunate quarry is so completely 

 paralyzed by fear that it almost invites the death stroke. The attack is nearly 

 always made at the base of the skull, where the sharp teeth of the weasel tear open 

 the brain case with a single stroke. In 1903, 33,883 weasel or ermine skins were sold 

 by the Hudson Bay Company in London. This was far above the normal catch, 



