5o 



MAMMALIA. 



lowed seemed to have caused no trouble after having fairly entered 

 the alimentary canal. Therefore there remains no question whatever 

 that the Fisher feeds upon the porcupine, but I do not agree with 

 Corporal Warfield in the belief that the "quills often prove fatal to it." 

 It is indeed remarkable that an animal no larger than the one now 

 under consideration should habitually feed upon a beast in whose 

 capture he must be pierced with numbers of large and sharp needles, 

 many of which exceed two and a half inches (64 mm.) in length — 

 needles that are destined to penetrate to the remotest parts of his 

 body. 



That it, at times, attacks so large and tough an animal as the Rac- 

 coon is evident from the following : Dr. Coues, in his valuable Mono- 

 graph of North American Mustelidee (pp. 73-74). quotes a letter from 

 Peter Reed to Prof. Spencer F. Baird, to the effect that the writer 

 once followed, on the snow, the bloody trail that marked the prog- 

 ress of a fierce and desperate contest between a Fisher and a 'Coon. 

 This was in Washington County, New York, near the southeastern 

 border of the Adirondack region. Mr. Reed further stated that as the 

 Fisher became rare in that section the Raccoon gready increased in 

 abundance, and he regards these circumstances as cause and effect. 



When pressed by hunger the Pekan is said to subsist upon beech- 

 nuts. This could hardly be true in the Adirondacks, for here a good 

 yield of beech-nuts is almost invariably followed by an abundance of 

 small game — grouse, squirrels, chipmunks, and mice alike fattening 

 upon the mast. " Beech-nut years," too, are apt to be followed by 

 mild winters; while it is during the deep snows of our severest winters, 

 when there are few or no beech-nuts, and a consequent scarcity of 

 small game prevails, that Pennant's Marten is likely to be pinched 

 for food. 



The Pekan is a large and powerful mammal, with resemblances 

 pointing both toward the Marten and the Wolverine. Individuals 

 have been killed that stood a foot high and measured three and a 

 half feet in length, but this is much above the average size. As there 



