190S:1 



MAMMALS. 



233 



at Fort Good Hope, in June, 190tt, where a family of young occupied 

 the meat cellar of the Hudson's Bay Company establishment. They 

 resented any intrusion into their adopted home, and their excited and 

 angry scoldings greeted me from behind the log walls whenever I 

 descended into the cellar. Three specimens were secured here, but 

 they proved to be young ones. 



Merriam. in his descrijDtion of P. arcticus^ recorded specimens from 

 Anderson River, Franklin Bay, and old Fort Good Hope.'^ In addi- 

 tion to specimens from these points, the collection of the National 

 Museum contains skins from the following localities: La Pierre 

 House. Fort McPherson, Fort Anderson, and Barren Grounds near 

 Horton Eiver. In notes accompanying a male taken by MacFarlane 

 at Fort Anderson, June 5, 186J:, the extreme length (probably meas- 

 ured to tip of tail pencil) is given as nearly 12 inches; another taken 

 at the same place June 15, 1864, measured 13 J inches (353 mm.) in 

 extreme length. 



J. C. Ross recorded Mustela erminea from Victoria Harbor, where 

 it was not numerous.^ Armstrong records two weasels, probably of 

 this species, which were killed at Mercy Bay, Banks Land, in July, 

 1852.' M'Clintock recorded the ' ermine ' from Port Kennedy, where 

 one was taken on October 2, 1858. Its extreme length was 13 inches. 

 Another, in the summer coat, was taken on Juty 2, 1859.^ Hubert 

 Darrell writes me that he saw weasels on the Barren Grounds near 

 the source of Great Fish River in December, 1900, and thinks that 

 they are found in small numbers along the coast between the Copper- 

 mine and Bathurst Inlet. 



Putorius longicauda (Bonaparte). Long-tailed Weasel. 



This plains species apparently does not extend north of the 

 Saskatchewan basin. Three specimens from Edmonton, Alberta, 

 taken, respectively, on September 10, 11, and 14, 1894, by J. Alden 

 Loring, are in the Biological Survey collection. They were taken in 

 a single trap, which was set in a rabbit runway in a brushy tract. 

 Another, a male, taken at St. Albert, Alberta, November 1, 1895, is 

 assuming the winter pelage, which is complete except along the center 

 of the back. These specimens are typical, not differing appreciably 

 from a series taken by Loring at Wingard, near Carlton House, Sas- 

 katchewan, the type locality of the species. 



Three males from Edmonton and St. Albert average : Total length 

 441, tail vertebrse 160.6, hind foot 50.6; the female from Edmonton 

 measured 387, 145, 45. 



« N. A. Fauna, No. 11, p. 15, 1896. 



^ Appendix to Ross's Second Voyage, p. x, 1835. 



^ Narrative Discovery Northwest Passage, p. 537, 1857. 



^ Voyage of the Fox, pp. 185, 292, 1860. 



