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fame fport with tolerable fuccefs, and the fame 

 dogs carry on a fierce war againft the foxes. 



There is a kind of polecat, r which goes by 

 the name of Enfant du Diahle, or the Child of the 

 Devil ; or Bete puante \ a title derived from his ill 

 fcent, becaufe his urine, which he lets go, when he 

 finds himfelf purfued, infects the air for half a quar- 

 ter of a league round \ this is in other refpects a 

 very beautiful creature. He is of the irze of a fmall 

 cat, but thicker, the fkin or fur mining, and of a 

 greyifH colour, with white lines, forming a fort of 

 oval on the back from the neck quire to the taiL 

 This tail is bufhy like that of a fox, and turned 

 up like a fquirrel. Its fur, like that of the animal 

 called Pekan^ another fort of wild-cat, much of 

 the fame fize with ours, and of the otter, the ordi* 

 nary polecat, the ptois^ wood-rat, ermine, and mar- 

 tin, a,re what is called la menut pelleterie^ or lefier 

 peltry. , The ermine is of the fize of our fquir- 

 rel, but not quite fo long his fur is of a moft 

 beautiful white, and his tail is long, and the tip of 

 it black as jet ; our martins are not fo red as thofe 

 of France, and have a much finer fur. They com- 

 monly keep in the middle of woods, whence they 

 never ftir but once in two or three years, but always 

 in large flocks. The Indians have a notion, that 

 the year in which they leave the woods, will be 

 good for hunting, that is, that there will be a great 

 fall of fnow. Martins fkins fell actually here at a 

 crown apiece, I mean the ordinary fort, for fuch 

 as are -brown go as high as four livres and up- 

 wards. 



The pltoi differs from the polecat only in that its 

 fur is longer, blacker, and thicker. Thefe two 

 animals make war on the birds, even of the largeft 



forts, 



