ET--THE MARTEN

This beautiful animal, the Sable of America, with its rich brown fur and
its golden throat, comes naturally after the Silver Fox, for such is the
relative value of their respective coats.

The Fox is a small wild dog; the Marten is a large tree Weasel. It is a
creature of amazing agility, so much so that it commonly runs down the
Red-squirrel among the tree tops.

Its food consists mainly of mice and Squirrels, but it kills Rabbits and
Grouse when it can find them, and sometimes even feasts on game of a far
more noble size.

Tom Newcomb, my old guide, has given me an interesting note on the
Marten, made while he was acting as hunting guide in the Shoshoni
Mountains.

In October, 1911, he was out with Baron D' Epsen and his party, hunting
on Miller Creek east of Yellowstone Park. They shot at a Deer. It ran
off as though unharmed, but turned to run down hill, and soon the snow
showed that it was spurting blood on both sides. They followed for three
or four hundred yards, and then the Deer track was joined by the tracks
of five Marten. In a few minutes they found the Deer down and the five
Marten, a family probably, darting about in the near trees, making their
peculiar soft purr as though in anticipation of the feast, which was
delayed only by the coming of the hunters. These attempts to share with
the killers of big game are often seen.

[Illustration]

THE INDUSTRIOUS BEAVER

In some respects the Beaver is the most notable animal in the West. It
was the search for Beaver skins that led adventurers to explore the
Rocky Mountains, and to open up the whole northwest of the United
States and Canada. It is the Beaver to-day that is the chief incentive
to poachers in the Park, but above all the Beaver is the animal that
most manifests its intelligence by its works, forestalls man in much of
his best construction, and amazes us by the well-considered labour of
its hands.

[Illustration: VII. Beaver: (a) Pond and house; (b) Stumps of tree cut
and removed by Beaver, near Yancey's, 1897
_Photos by E. T. Seton_]

[Illustration: VIII. Mule-deer
_Photo by E. T. Seton_]

[Illustration]

There was a time when the Beaver's works and wisdom were so new and
astounding that super-human intelligence was ascribed to this fur-clad
engineer. Then the scoffers came and reduced him to the low level of his
near kin, and explained the accounts of his works as mere fairy tales.
Now we have got back to the middl