64 
The Animal-Lore of ShaJcspeare’s Time. 
Court against the publication of the book. The work was 
accordingly suppressed. The report of Dr. Fletcher to 
Queen Elizabeth from Russia, is printed in Hakluyt’s 
collection of voyages (vol. i. p. 538, ed. Evans, 1810). He 
gives a list of the various fur-producing animals of that 
part of the country:— 
“ The chiefe furres are these, blacke fox, sables, lusernes, dun fox, 
martrones, gurnestalles or armins, lasets or miniver, bever, wulverins, 
the skin of a great water rat that smelleth naturally like muske, 
calaber or gray squirrel, red squirrel, red and white fox. The blacke 
foxe and red come out of Siberia, white and dunne from Pechora, whence 
also come the white wolfe and white beare skin. The best wulverin 
also thence and from Perm. The best martrons are from Siberia, Cadam, 
Morum, Perm, and Cazan. Lyserns, minever, and armins, the best are 
out of Gallets, and Ouglits, many from Novogrod, and Perm. The 
beaver of the best sort breede in Murmonskey by Cola.” 
The Ermine, though one of the smallest of the animals 
hunted for the sake of their skins, takes pre¬ 
cedence of others from the fact that its fur 
was chiefly worn by royal personages. From the snowy 
whiteness of its coat, and perhaps from the dislike it has 
to any substance that can soil it, this animal was con¬ 
sidered as the emblem of purity and stainless honour. 
As such it has been, as accurate students of history would 
naturally expect, appropriated by sovereigns to their 
peculiar use— 
“ Whose honour, ermine like, can never suffer 
Spot, or black soil.” 
(Beaumont and Fletcher, Knight of Malta.) 
The ermine, or armin, is the Siberian stoat. The name is 
a corruption of Armenia, in the woods of which country 
the animal abounded. 
Olaus Magnus gives a strange account of the Nor¬ 
wegian ermines:— 
“ These small beasts, for the most part, every three years, for the 
merchants exceeding great gain, grow to have their skins very long. 
