MUSTELA PENNANTI 
5 I 
are “giants among men,” and “ giant wolves,” so are there giants 
among Fishers. They are always males. About twenty years ago 
E. L. Sheppard caught one on Seventh Lake (Fulton Chain) that 
was estimated to weigh about forty pounds and whose skin was 
larger than that of a good-sized Otter ! In my Osteological Cabinet 
reposes the skull of a Fisher that measures five inches in length. It 
was presented to me by Mr. John Constable, who killed it between 
Stony Lake and “The Hollow,” near Independence River, dur- 
ing the early part of the winter of 1840. Mr. Constable tells me 
that it ascended a gigantic dead pine, the tip of which had broken 
off. The “ stub” of this tree was more than six feet through at the 
base, and upwards of an hundred and fifty feet in height. The Fisher 
climbed to the very top and lodged in a depression where the tip 
had broken off. He was shot but was so lodged that he did not fall, 
and the tree had to be felled before he was secured. The pine was 
an unusually fine one — a straight pillar, tapering uniformly to the top, 
and so perpendicular and well balanced that when the side choppings 
met it did not fall, and was with great difficulty overthrown. When 
it did finally tumble, and the cloud of snow that filled the air as it 
came crashing and thundering to the ground had cleared away, the 
Fisher was found to be dead. It proved to be in keeping with the 
tree it had climbed, for it was as large as an Otter and by far the 
biggest Fisher that Mr. Constable, or the old hunter with him, had 
ever seen. 
Though chiefly nocturnal they sometimes hunt by day. They are 
expert climbers and have been known to leap from one tree to an- 
other when in pursuit of their prey, and also when badly frightened. 
Their nest is made in the hollow of some standing tree, generally 
thirty or forty feet from the ground, and from two to four young are 
commonly brought forth about the first of May. 
