692 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[May 4, 190J 
The Fisher. 
Brewer, Maine, April 27 . —Editor Forest and 
Stream: I was pleased with Martin Hunter s 
article on the fisher, as it shows that he is well ac¬ 
quainted with his subject. I wish to corroboiate 
what he says of fisher and sable eating mountain 
ash berries. I have known them to pass close to 
a well-baited trap in order to climb a mountain 
ash, and after feeding on the berries, to pass it 
again and pay no attention to the bait. In fact, 
as Mr. Hunter says, it is hard to trap either 
fisher or sable when mountain ash berries are 
plentiful. 
I know of no animal of its size which can put 
up such a fight as a fisher. Their weight is 
about the same as that of a common house cat, 
and yet they can kill deer, and few dogs are a 
match for one when it is cornered. An Indian 
of my acquaintance told me that when moose 
hunting he followed the track of a fisher, which 
went 'into a large hollow pine log. Having a 
large bulldog with him, which he thought could 
whip anything of his size, he sent the dog in 
after the fisher. He felt so sure that he should 
have no use for his gun that he set it against a 
tree and stood laughing to himself as he lis¬ 
tened to the noise of the fight going on in the 
log, expecting to see the dog drag out the dead 
fisher. To his surprise the cat sprang out and 
was out of sight before he could get his gun, 
while the dog crawled out so badly bitten up that 
he could not be induced to follow the fisher 
track. I have a number of times known them to 
break trap chains which would have held a wild¬ 
cat of twice their weight. 
Speaking of the weight of fisher, many people 
greatly overestimate it. I see in a recent article 
of Mr. Spears, in Forest and Stream, that he 
speaks of seeing the track of a fisher which his 
guide said would weigh sixty pounds. As a 
matter of fact, I doubt if one ever weighed one- 
quarter of that. I have weighed a good many 
and they ranged from eight to twelve and one- 
half pounds. The skin of the twelve-and-a-half- 
pound one was as large as I ever saw, and I 
TAME PASSENGER PIGEON. 
Owned and photographed by C. O. Whitman, ot the University of Chicago. 
Courtesy of Outing Pub. Co. 
have handled over five thousand fisher ski 
Four feet two inches from nose to tip of 
is about as large as any will stretch, if stretc 
to fair width. 
With us, where they have been trapped a pj 
deal, some fisher are much harder to trap ij 
a sable, though not harder than a raccoon, w 
animal they resemble in some of their ha 
Like the ’coon, they have dens in ledges, ho 
logs and hollow standing trees. While I k 
that they hunt by day, I also know that 
hunt some by night, as I once had the skill 
one killed by the late Jock Darling, who, 
tracking it to a standing hollow tree, foutil 
curled up inside fast asleep. 
I once saw a fisher racing up and dov\ 
gravel beach as if in search of something. | 
getting nearer I saw a snowshoe rabbit cro 
ing down on the end of a gravel bar in [ 
stream, with only his head above water. He 
been chased by the fisher and had swum 01 
the bar to escape him, and the fisher was tr 
to follow his track. The fisher retreated to 
brush on the bank and I called him out as 
calls a mink and shot him. 
Often a fisher will follow a sable line, ju 
a bear does, and tear down every log trail 
comes to, eating any sable he may find in 
traps. When they trouble a line in this 
they can usually be caught in a deadfall sc 
a hollow tree, commonly called a “stub t 
or in a steel trap. In case a steel trap is 
it is usual to set it with a spring pole, as I 
will foot themselves nearly as often as a racd 
The proportion of sable to fisher varies gr 
according to the ground hunted on. In 
cases a large catch of sable will be made and 
a fisher be taken; in other places several f 
will be taken and no sable, but usually a j 
of from fifty to a hundred sable will have 1 
three to five fisher. 
With us fisher feed mostly upon porcu t 
and rabbits, but when they take bait well j 
will take almost any kind of meat or fisl 
once caught one in a deadfall baited with a 
of a sable body. In eating porcupines they 
low a great many quills which do not see 
occasion them any inconvenience. While 
are often killed by porcupine quills—and I 
had wildcat, fox and raccoon brought to 
which had been picked up dead with their 1 
full of quills, which had evidently caused 
death—I have never seen a case where the -| 
had injured a fisher; yet it is almost an 
ceptior. to see a skin which has not moi 
less quills lying flatwise just beneath the 
skin. These quills are found mostly on the 
of the head and neck or else low down 01 
back near the root of the tail. They have| 
dently been swallowed and have worked j 
way through the head and the body, 
quills are almost always the short ones, sir 
are found on the head and tail of porcupine 
have seen where a fisher has eaten a porcup 
and it was done by eating in on the belly m 
there are no quills and turning the skin ba 
he ate— leaving the skin as a raccoon d* 
skunk skin, wrong side out and nearly e 
I have carefully examined hundreds of 
skins which had quills in them and have 
seen a case where they had caused any so: 
they do in other animals. Sometimes, and a 
in large fisher, I have seen skins with five c 
perforations on the back low down. I have! 
told that these were the bites of other 1 
biting the dead one in a trap as rnuskra 
one another when dead. 
The only case where I have kn@wn you 
be found was in a den in a hollow sta 
hemlock tree. This was in 'ate May or 
June, and there were four young. I have 
known of the young being seen with the n 
when partly grown, and never after snow 
