MUSTELA AMERICANA. 
53 
tent was he upon this deed of carnage that he was utterly oblivious 
to the human spectators, who put an end to the scene by driving a 
bullet through his obdurate pate. 
Audubon said of it : “ Let us take a share of the cunning and sneak- 
ing character of the fox, as much of the wide-awake and cautious 
habits of the weasel, a similar proportion of the voracity (and a little 
of the fetid odor) of the mink, and add thereto some of the climbing 
propensities of the raccoon, and we have a tolerable idea of the at- 
tributes of the little prowler.” * 
Mr. Constable tells me that when the hunter discovers a Marten 
climbing about amongst the tree-tops he has only to whistle, and the 
inquisitive animal will stop and peer down at him, affording an ex- 
cellent shot. 
I have no personal knowledge of the size of a litter of Martens, 
and the number of young produced at a time is variously stated (2 
to 8 being the extremes given) by different authors. The assertion 
that from four to six constitute an average litter would probably hit 
pretty close to the truth. The nest is placed in a hollow tree or 
log, rarely in the ground, and the young are brought forth in April. 
The fur of this species, which is one of the most valuable of fur- 
bearing animals, becomes prime early in November. As long ago 
as 1770, Pennant said that their skins were “a prodigious article of 
commerce f and Richardson, in 1829, stated that “ Upward of one 
hundred thousand skins have long been collected annually in the fur 
countries.” J Dr. Coues tells us that : “ Even in Nova Scotia a 
thousand skins are said to have been exported annually within a 
few years, and they may justly be regarded as among the most im- 
portant of the land fur-bearing animals.” And goes on to say, “ Re- 
specting their comparative scarcity at times, Mr. Ross has recorded a 
remarkable fact of periodical disappearance. ‘ It occurs in decades,’ 
* Quadrupeds of North America, Vol. Ill, 1854, p. 177. 
f Synopsis of Quadrupeds, 1771, p. 216. 
\ Fauna Boreali Americana, Vol. I, 1829. 
