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. . ^ - mi i i i i i - - - ■ — — ■ ■ — ^^— 



NEW YORK, THURSDAY, JANUARY 4, 1877. 



» i a urn i i. i ii i » i . ,, , p ii . . ii '' ■ — 



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Volume 7, tfomber 38. 

 IT Chatham 8t. (City Hall Hcjr.) 



TO MY COUSIN JACK. 



[The following lines were addressed twenty-one years ago to Hon. 

 John Pierpont, since then, and still, Chief Justice of the Supreme 

 Court of Vermont.) 



C^OUSIN, more years have flitted by 

 J Than we might choose to tell, 

 Since, sworn moss-troopers, you and I 

 Have lived beneath each summer sky 



So heartily and well. 

 And little cared we all the whilo 



How fast these years were flying. 

 And little marked how youth's bright smile 

 That did their flight so well beguile, 



From off the world was dying. 



Worthy of thine old-fashioned race, 



Weil hast thou borne thy part, 

 And, spite the gathering years, we trace 

 Pew wrinkles on thy manly face 



And noue upon thy heart. 

 In sooth, old Time has hardly cast 



A shadow on thy track, 

 Thougn. as life's summer day flies past, 

 The harvest moon is rising fast 



Above us, Cousin Jack. 



The woodcock in the tangled brake 



Marks well thy whistle's note; 

 The deer that by the wood-fringed lake 

 A moment halts his thirst to slake, 



For thee looks sharply out; 

 The wild duck, as he scuds along, 



Seeth thine eye of black. 

 And cries with shrill despairing tone-, 

 "Don't shoot, o d boy, I'm coming down 1 ,. 



1 know you, Cousin Jackl" 



Thou should'st have lived in that old day 



Long formed in song and story, 

 Of baron bold and lady gay, 

 Of tournament, and feast and lray, 



Love, chivalry and glory, 

 When faces were of nearts the token, 



And hearts were true, like thine. 

 When manly thoughts were baldly spoken,. 

 And healths were drunk, and heads were broken, 



O'er sparkling Rhenish wine. 



Those bluff and hearty times are gone 



From off the changeful earth, 

 Their monuments have tumbled down, 

 And the sham virtues, then unknown, 



Are now of passing worth . 

 But in the few and rare like thee, 



Left to this modern day, 

 We sometimes yet are fain to see 

 That frank, old-fashioned chivalry 



Has not all passed away. 



When o'er the woods another fall 



Its lingering charm has thrown, 

 My gun will hang upon the wall, 

 My horses learn another's call. 



My dog a stranger's tone. 

 But still may thou, aye kindly known 



On Champlain's glorious water, 

 Till many a year has come and gone, 

 Wake the wild woodland echoes on 



Dead Creek and little Otter. ~E, J. aaffiLKR, 



For Forest and-&a>6am+ 



miorjj mid ^abik of 

 %j$olvennt. 



(Gufo luscus.) 



" -' - * ■ — • 



BY DR. ELLIOTT COUES, U. S. A. 



PHE written history of the glutton or wolverene dates 



* from the middle of the sixteenth century, about 

 which time the animal is mentioned by several writers in 

 ffi uch the same extravagant terms. Olaus Magnus, to 

 jsvhom is commonly attributed the earliest mention, al- 

 though he appears to have been anticipated a little by 

 Wesner, gives a most extraordinary account, made up of 

 Q e then current popular traditions and superstitions, and 

 ales of hunters or travelers unchecked by any proper 

 scientific inquiry, although, to do him justice^ he does not 

 entirely credit them himself. We may be sure; that such 

 savory morsels of animal biography did no* escape the 

 notice of subsequent compilers, and that they lost nothing 

 ot their flavor at the hands of the versatile and vivacious 



ufion. Endorsed for two centuries by various writers, 

 each more or less authoritative in his own times, and 

 Moreover appealing strongly to the popular love of the 



arvellous, the current fables took strong root and grew 

 *Pace, flourishing like all "ill weeds," &$# poking sober 



accounts. Coming down to us through such a long line of 

 illustrious godfathers they were treated with the respect 

 generally accorded to long years, and furnished the staple 

 of professedly educational text books. Probably no 

 youth's early conceptions of the glutton* were uncovered 

 with romance; the general picture impressed upon Hie 

 susceptible mind of that period being that of a ravenous 

 monster of insatiate voracity, matchless strength and su- 

 pernatural cunning, a terror to all other baasts, the blood- 

 thirsty master of the forest. We cannot wonder at the 

 quality of the stream when we turn to the fountain head 

 of such gross exaggeration. We find it gravely stated 

 that the brute will feast upon the carcass of some large 

 animal until its belly is swollen a3 tight as a drum, and 

 then get rid of its burden by squeezing itself between two 

 trees in order that it may return to glut itself anew — an 

 alleged climax of gluttony to which no four-footed beast 

 attains, aud for a parallel with which we must refer to 

 some of the most noted gormandizers of the Roman Em- 

 pire. We have indeed reliable accounts of such gastro- 

 nomic exploits, but they are not a part of those records, 

 which are generally accepted as zoological. In one of 

 the old zoological works of some celebrity there is a very 

 droll picture of a wolverine squeezing itself between two 

 trees, with a most anxious expression of countenance, the 

 fore part of the body being pressed thin, while Hie latter is 

 still distended, and the large pile of manure already de- 

 posited being rapidly argumented with further supplies. 

 Still in the track of the marvellous we read how the glut- 

 ton, too clumsy and tardy of foot to overtake large rumi- 

 nants, betakes itself to the trees beneath which they may 

 pass, and there crouches in wait for its victim; it drops 

 like a shot upon the unsuspecting elk, moose, reindeer, 

 and, fastening with claws and teeth, sucks the blood and 

 destroys them as they run. That nothing may be left un- 

 done to insure success the animal has the wit to throw 

 down moss and lichens to attract its prey; and to employ 

 the friendly services of foxes to drive the quarry beneath 

 the fatal spot. I allude to these things, not that such 

 gross exaggerations longer require refutation, but because 

 they are a part, and no inconsiderable one, of the history of 

 the species; and because, as we shall see in the sequal, a 

 perfectly temperate and truthful narration of the creature's 

 actual habits sufficiently attests the possession of really re- 

 markable qualities, which need be but caricatured for trans- 

 formation into just such fables. We may remember also 

 that the history of the wolverene is mixed in some cases 

 with that of other animals, some of whose habits have 

 been attributed to it. Thus Charlevoix (Voy. Amer., 201) 

 speaks of the "carcajou or quincajou, a kind of cat," evi- 

 dently, however, having the cougar (Felis concolor) in 

 view, as appears from the rest of his remarks. Such habit 

 of lying in wait for their prey is common to the cougar, 

 lynx and other large cats. Not to prolong this portion of 

 the subject I may state briefly that the animal whose 

 characteristics will be fully exposed in the course of this 

 article is simply an uncommonly large, clumsy, shaggy 

 marten or weasel of great strength without corresponding 

 agility, highly carnivorous like the rest of the tribe, and 

 displaying great perseverance and sagacity in procuring 

 food in its northern residence where the supply is limited 

 or precarious, often making long uninterrupted journeys, 

 although so short-legged. It is imperfectly plantigrade, 

 and does not climb trees like mo«t of its allies. It lives in 

 dens or burrows, and does not hybernate. It feeds upon 

 the carcasses of large animals which it finds already slain, 

 but does not destroy such creatures itself, its ordinary prey 

 being of a much humbler character. It is a notorious 

 thief, not only of stores of meat and fish laid up by the 

 natives of the countries it inhabits, the bait of their traps, 

 and the animals so caught, but also of articles of no pos- 

 sible service to itself; and avoids with most admirable 

 cunning the various methods devised for its destruction in 

 retaliation. 



All the earlier accounts referred to the animal of Europe 

 and Asia. We do not find the terms "carcajou" and "wol- 

 verene," nor any allusion to the American form until early 

 in the eighteenth century. La Hontan SDeaks of it in 

 1703, likening it to a large fierce badger. Lawson has 

 heen quoted in this connection, he having attributed to the 

 lynx some of the fabulous accounts of the glutton; but it 

 is evident that his remarks neither apply, nor were in- 

 tended to apply to the wolverene. Catesby speaks of an 

 animal "like a small bear" which exists in the Arctic por- 

 tions of America; the reference is among the earlier ones 

 to Uiq woiyerene, those which confound it with other 



species being excluded*. We have other definite accounts 

 of the wolverene, near the middle of the eighteenth cen- 

 tury, as those of Klein, Ellis Dot.bs Edwards and Brisson; 

 and the species may be considered to have been well known 

 from this period, although it was for a long time very gen- 

 erally supposed to be different from tho glutton of Europe 

 and Asia. 



The Various American biographies of this animal are 

 without exception moie or less incomplete and unsatisfac- 

 tory; even those which areshorneof obvious exaggerations 

 are in large part a compilation of earlier statements They 

 have, however, steadily improved, the latest, that of Au- 

 dubon and Bachman, being by far the best, although Sir 

 John Richardson's was an excellent contribution The 

 account which Pennant gave iu 1784 {Aret. ZooL pp. 66 '8) 

 is purged of some of the fables, yet curiously shows how 

 their effects will linger. He scouts the idea of such ex- 

 cessive gluttony as has been attributed, yet relates the 

 moss throwing story, and represents the wolverene as "a 

 beast of uncommon fierceness, the terror of the wolf and 

 bear; the former, which will devour any carrion, will not 

 touch the carcass of this animal, which smells more fee i id 

 than that of the polecat." Pennant traced its distribution 

 as far north as Copper river to the countries on the west 

 and south of Hudson's Bay, Canada, and the tract between 

 lakes Huron and Superior. He gives a fair description, 

 and adds that "it hath much the action of the bear, not 

 only in the form of its back, and the hanging down of its 

 head, but also in resting on the hind part of the rim joint 

 of its legs." The Kamtschatkans" he naively continues, 

 "value them so highly as to say that the heavenly beings 

 wear no other furs." Richardson gives some interesting 

 particulars, among them none, so far as I am aware, that 

 are not accurate. In a passage he quotes from Graham's 

 MSS., we see a probable basis for the fabulous accounts 

 that the fox is the wolverene's provider or abettor in the 

 chase— for it is well-nigh universal that fable is founded 

 on facts exaggerated, distorted or perverted. Alluding to 

 the wolverene's notorious habit of following marten roads, 

 Mr. Graham remarks that the animal tears the captured 

 martens to pieces or buries them at a distance in the snow. 

 "Drifts of snow often conceal the repositories thus made 

 of the martens from the hunter, in which case they lur- 

 nish a regale to the hungry fox, whose sagacious nostril 

 guides him unerringly to the spot. Two or three foxes 

 are often seen following the wolverene for this purpose." 

 Richardson very properly discredits the accounts which 

 had come down from Buffon of the destruction of beavers 

 by the wolverene; "it must be only in summer," he sa>s, 

 '•when those industrious animals are at work on land that 

 it can surprise them. An attempt to break open their 

 house in winter, even supposing it possible for the claws 

 of a wolverene to penetrate the thick mud walls when 

 frozen as hard as stone, would only have the effect of 

 driving the beavers into the water to seek for shelter in 

 their vaults on the borders of the dam." Hearne gives a 

 much more credible account of the depredations of the 

 wolverene upon another of the valuable fur bearing ani- 

 mals of the North — the fox— during the period of repro- 

 duction. Being directed by scent to the burrows of the 

 fox, which its great strength enables it to enlarge if neces- 

 sary, it enters and destroys the whole family. In evidence 

 of its amazing strength of that sort most effective in pull- 

 ing, pushing and prying, the same author mentions that a 

 wolverene had been know to up=et the greater part of a 

 pile of wood nearly seventy yaids around in order to get 

 at some provisions which had been deposited in the cache. 

 Audubon's article, although interesting and accurate, is 

 chiefly a compilation from previous accounts, as he appears 

 to have met with the animal in a state of nature but once, 

 the result of which occurrence is his principal contiibu- 

 tion to the subject This was in Renssalaer county, near 

 the banks of the Hoosac river. He tracked a wolverene 

 in the snow to its den, which was among rocks, and thot 

 it after prying aw^y some heavy fragments. "There was 

 a large nest of dried leaves in the cavern which had evi- 

 dently been a place of resort for the wolverene -duriDg the 

 whole winter, as its tracks from every direction led to ihe 

 spot. It had laid up no winter stores, >md evidently de- 

 pended on its nightly excursions for a supply of food. It 

 had, however, fared well, for it was very fat." 



*The wolverene has been confused, not only with the irnx 

 and cougar in early times, but also quite recently with 

 the American badger, Taxidea americona. Thus F Cuvier 

 (Suppl. Buffon, 1831, 267) treats at length of -'Le Varcaiou 

 on Blaireau Americain;" his whole article being based ud- 

 on the badger, to which he misconstrues the name Carcaion to 

 belong. Gervais also speaks of the Corkojou ou. Blaireau 

 4' Amerique (Proc. Verb. Soc, PMlora. ■ Paris, 1843, 30.) * uaireau 



