316 



THE POLAR WORLD. 



the head down the middle of the face, and ending below the eyes. The tail is 

 very thickly covered with hair, and is annulated with several black bars on a 

 yellowish-white ground. Its face is very like that of the fox, whom it equals 

 in cunning, while its active and playful habits resemble those of the monkey. 

 Its favorite haunts are the woods, near streams or lakes, for one of its most 

 marked peculiarities, from which it has received its specific name of lotor, or the 

 washer, is its habit of plunging its dry. food into water before eating it. The 

 raccoon devours almost any thing that comes in his way — fruits and grain of all 

 sorts, birds' nests, mice, grasshoppers, beetles : while the waters yield him fishes, 

 crabs, and oysters, which he is very expert in opening. His fur forms no in- 

 considerable article of commerce, and is very fashionable in Russia. In 1841, 

 111,316 raccoon skins wwe imported into St. Petersburg, and more than half a 

 million were stapled in Leipzig, intended, no doubt, for smuggling across the 

 frontier. 



The fur of the American glutton, or w^olverine, is much used for muffs and 

 linings ; yet, from its being a notorious robber of their traps, the animal is as 

 much hated by the Indian hunters as the dog-fish by the northern fishermen. 



The Pludson's Bay territories can not boast of the sable, but the American 

 pine marten (Maries ahietum) is not much inferior in value, as its dark-brown 

 fur is remarkably fine, thick, and glossy. It frequents the woody districts, 

 where it preys on birds, and all the smaller quadrupeds from the hare to the 

 mouse. Even the squirrel is incapable of escaping the pine marten, and after 

 having vaulted and climbed from tree to tree, sinks at last exhausted into its 

 gripe. 



The pekan, or woodshock {Maries canadensis), the largest of the marten fam- 

 ily, is also the one which most richly supplies the fur-market. It is found over 

 the whole of i^orth America, and generally lives in burrows near the banks of 

 rivers, as it principally feeds on the small quadrupeds that frequent the water. 



Several species of ermine inhabit the Hudson's Bay territories, but their 

 skins are of no great importance in the fur-trade. Like many other species of 

 the marten family, they eject, when irritated or alarmed, a fluid of a fetid odor : 

 but in this respect they are far surpassed by the chinga {Mephiiis chinga)^ 

 whose secretion has so intolerable a smell that the least quantity suffices to pro- 

 duce nausea and a sense of suffocation. This animal is frequently found near 

 Hudson's Bay, whence it extends farther to the north. In spite of the formi- 

 dable means of defense with which it has been armed by nature, it is of use to 

 man, for its black and white striped fur (which, as may easily be supposed, 

 never appears in the European market) provides the Indians with coverings 

 or tobacco-pouches. Before seizing the chinga, they irritate it with a long 

 switch until it has repeatedly emptied the glands from which the noxious va- 

 por issues ; then suddenly springing upon it, they hold it up by the tail and 

 dispatch it. 



The mink {Yison americanus)^ another member of the weasel family, is one 

 of the most important fur-bearing animals of the Hudson's Bay territories. It 

 resembles the small European fish-otter {Vison hitreola), but its skin is far more 

 valuable — the brown hair with which it is covered being much softer and thick- 



