WOLVERINE, GLUTTON, or CAR CAJOU, a carnivorous mammal (Gulo luscus), of the weasel family (Masttlichr) but differing greatly in appearance from the lit and slender weasels typical of that family. e wolverine is a short, thick, heavily-buih animal about two and one-half feet long, whose short legs, sub-plantigrade feet and short, bushy tail add to a decidedly bear-like aspect of body. On the body and especially on the tail the hair is long, coarse and rough, blackish-brown with a pair of yellowish lateral bands meeting at the root of the tail above. The teeth are 38 in number and the molars are remarkable for their massive ness. The wolverine is a northern animal entering the United States only along the Canadian border, and even there very rare.
Apparently there is no distinction between the glutton of northern Europe and Asia and the American wolverine, and in both Old and New Worlds this brute is hated alike by woods men and trappers for its voracity, native mean ness and cunning. It has the reputation of being the most powerful mammal of its size in existence, and in dogged courage is said to have no equal. Those who have had experience with it place it ahead of even the coyote in crafti ness and the ingenuity which it exhibits in finding and robbing the stores of man and beast. It systematically follows the lines of traps set by fur hunters and robs them of both baits and captured animals; but is itself one of the most difficult of animals to take and succeeds in re peatedly springing and robbing traps set for it, even when most cunningly concealed. Nor is
its thieving confined to things edible; sometimes every portable article in a camp equipment will be carried away and hidden by a wolverine. It devours enormous quantities of food and its European name indicates that it is the type of greedy voracity. It lives on hares, squirrels, beaver, mice, foxes, all kinds of ground birds and their eggs, reptiles. insects. and even such large game as reindeer, which it is enabled to secure by its perseverance, great strength and cunning. The wolverine finds it% most con genial home in the great northern forests, but its range extends beyond the tree line to the Arctic shores. Early spring is the mating season, and four or five young arc born in June or July in a nest at the bottom of a burrow. The savage courage with which the female will defend her young is almost proverbial among trappers, who dread few animals so much as a mother wolverine with her family. Consult Coues, 'Fur-bearing Animals' (Washington 1877); Scion, E. T., 'Life Histories of North ern Animals' (New York 1909).