Audubon's Mammals/MAMMALS1_3.BIN/dp/0005/00058.txt

Text File | 1992-08-25 | 20KB | 332 lines

$Unique_ID{QAD00058}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Pennant's Marten; Pennant's Fisher; Black Fox of the Northern
Hunters; Black Cat of the Northern Hunters     (Fisher)}
$Subject{Pennant's Marten; Pennant's Fisher; Black Fox of the Northern
Hunters; Black Cat of the Northern Hunters     (Fisher); Mustela; Canadensis}
$Journal{Quadrupeds of North America:  Volume I}
$Volume{Vol. 1:307-315}
$Genus{Mustela}
$Species{Canadensis}
$Common_Name{Pennant's Marten; Pennant's Fisher; Black Fox of the Northern
Hunters; Black Cat of the Northern Hunters}
$Log{
Plate XLI*00058P1.scf
Genus*00057.txt}

       Portions copyright (c) Creative Multimedia Corp., 1990-91, 1992

                       A U D U B O N ' S   M A M M A L S

                    By John James Audubon, F. R. S., &c. &c.

                                      AND

                     The Rev. John Bachman, D. D., &c. &c.

                  -------------------------------------------
                                    VOL.  I.
                        --------------------------------


                         MUSTELA CANADENSIS.--SCHREBER.
                               [Martes pennanti]

                          PENNANT'S MARTEN OR FISHER.
                BLACK FOX OR BLACK CAT OF THE NORTHERN HUNTERS.
                                    [Fisher]

                               PLATE XLI.--MALE.


     Capite et humeris cano fuscoque mixtis; naso, labiis, cruribus, et cauda,
fusco-nigris.


                                  CHARACTERS.

     Head and shoulders, mixed with gray and brown nose, lips, legs, and tail,
dark brown.


                                   SYNONYMES.

     LE PEKAN, Buffon, vol. xiii., p. 304, A.D. 1749.
     MUSTELA CANADENSIS, Schreber, Saugthiere, p. 492, 1775.
     MUSTELA PENNANTI, Erxleben, Syst., p. 470, A.D. 1777.
     FISHER, Penn., Arct. Zool., 4 vols., vol. i., p. 82, A.D. 1784.
     MUSTELA CANADENSIS, Gmel., Linn., vol. i., p. 95, 1788.
     WEJACK, Hearne's Journey.
     FISHER, or BLACK FOX, Lewis and Clarke, vol. iii., p. 25.
     FISHER, WEASEL, Or PEKAN, Warden's United States.
     MUSTELA PENNANTI Sabine, Frank.  First Journey, p. 651.
     MUSTELA CANADENSIS, Harlan, F., p. 65.
     MUSTELA CANADENSIS, Godman, vol. i., p. 203.
     MUSTELA GODMANI, Less., Mamm., p. 130.
     MUSTELA CANADENSIS, Rich., F.B.A., p. 52.
     PEKAN or FISHER, Dekay, Nat. Hist. N.Y., p. 31.


                                  DESCRIPTION.

     The head of this species bears a stronger resemblance to that of a dog than
to the head of a cat.  Its canine teeth, in the upper jaw, are so long, that
with the slightest movement of the lip they are exposed.  Head, broad and round,
contracting rather suddenly toward the nose, which is acute.  Eyes, rather small
and oblique; ears, low, broad, semicircular, and far apart, covered on both
surfaces with short soft fur; whiskers, half the length of the head; body, long
and formed for agility and strength.
     The pelage consists of a short fine down next the skin, intermixed with
longer and coarser hairs about an inch and a half in length; these hairs are
longer on the posterior parts of the animal than on the shoulders.
     The feet are robust.  Fore-feet, shorter than the hind-feet, thickly
clothed with rather fine and short hairs; nails, long, strong, curved, and
sharp; soles, hairy; the toes on all the feet are connected at the base by a
short hairy web; the callosities consequently make only a slight impression when
the animal is walking or running on the snow.
     Tail, long, bushy, and gradually diminishing to a point toward the
extremity.
     This species has so strong a smell of musk, (like the pine marten,) that we
have found the skin somewhat unpleasant to our olfactories, several years after
it had been prepared as a specimen.


                                    COLOUR.

     Fur on the back, from the roots to near the extremity, chesnut-brown,
tipped with reddish-brown and light gray.  On the head, shoulders, and fore part
of the back, there are so many long whitish hairs interspersed, that they
produce a somewhat hoary appearance.  Whiskers, nose, chin, ears, legs, feet,
and tail, dark-brown; margins of the ears, light-brown; hips and posterior part
of the back, darker than the shoulders; eyes, yellowish-brown; nails, light
horn-colour.
     In some specimens, we have seen a white spot on the throat, and a line of
the same colour on the belly; others, (as was the case with the one from which
our drawing was made,) have no white markings on the body.  We have seen a
specimen, nearly white, with a brown head.  Another, obtained in Buncombe
county, North Carolina, was slightly hoary on the whole upper surface.


                                  DIMENSIONS.

                                                           Inches.

     From point of nose to root of tail   .  .  .  .  .  .  23
     Tail, (vertebrae)  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  12
     Tail to end of hair   .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  14 1/2
     Breadth of head .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .   3 1/2
     Height of ear.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .   1
     Breadth of ear  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .   2
     From point of nose to eye   .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .   2
     From heel to point of longest nail   .  .  .  .  .  .   4 1/4
                               Weight, 8 1/2 lbs.


                                    HABITS.

     Although this species is represented as having been rather common in every
part of the Northern and Middle States, in the early periods of our history, and
is still met with in diminished numbers, in the thinly settled portions of our
country; very little of its history or habits has been written, and much is
still unknown.  We have occasionally met with it, but it has been to us far from
a common species.  Even in the, mountainous portions of the Northern and Eastern
States, the Fisher, thirty years ago, was as difficult to procure as the Bay
lynx.  It has since become still more rare, and in places where it was then
known, scarcely any vestige of the knowledge of its former existence can now be
traced.
     Dr. DEKAY (Nat. Hist. N.Y., p. 32, 1843,) states that, "in Hamilton county,
(N.Y.,) it is still numerous and troublesome."  On an excursion we made in the
State of New-York, 1827, we heard of it occasionally near the head waters of
Lake Champlain, along the St. Lawrence, and to the west as far as Lake Erie, but
it was every where represented as a species that was fast disappearing.
     Whilst residing in the northern part of our native State, (New-York,)
thirty-five years ago, the hunters were in the habit of bringing us two or three
specimens of this Marten in the course of a winter.  They obtained them by
following their tracks in the snow, when the animals had been out in quest of
food on the previous night, thus tracing them to the hollow trees in which they
were concealed, which they chopped down.  They informed us that as a tree was
falling, the Fisher would dart from the hollow, which was often fifty feet from
the ground, and leap into the snow, when the dogs usually seized and killed him,
although not without a hard struggle, as the Fisher was infinitely more
dangerous to their hounds than either the gray or the red fox.  They usually
called this species the Black Fox.
     A servant, on one occasion, came to us before daylight, asking us to shoot
a raccoon for him, which, after having been chased by his dogs the previous
night, had taken to so large a tree that he neither felt disposed to climb it
nor to cut it down.  On our arrival at the place, it was already light, and the
dogs were barking furiously at the foot of the tree.  We soon perceived that
instead of being a raccoon, the animal was a far more rare and interesting
species, a Fisher.  As we were anxious to study its habits we did not
immediately shoot, but teased it by shaking some grape vines that had crept up
nearly to the top of the tree.  The animal not o