MARTEN (Fr. martrr, nuirte. front mart us, marturis, mordants, mardalus, mar daring. from 01T(1. mardar, ('7er. .harder, from 011G. mart, AS. wear!). marten; Itrohahly eon neoted with T.ith. marlin, bride). Either of Iwo species of fur-hearing animals of the genus Alus tele, which also contains the sables. The body is elongated and supple. :is in weasels, the leg; short, and the toes separate, with sharp. long claws. The nose is grooved and the ears are shorter and broader than in weasels, and the tail is bushy. The martens exhibit great agility and gracefulness in their movements and are very expert in climbing trees, among \\IliCh they gen erally live, furnishing a lofty hollow in a decay ing trunk with a bed of leaves. Ilei e the young are brought forth in litters of six to eight early each spring: but in a mountainous country all will make dens, sometimes in crevices of rocks.
The term marten is somewhat indefinite, but is most applied in America to the animal which is the nearest analogue to the Old World sable (q.v.), and hence is frequently called the American sable or pine marten: technically it is Muskla Americana. This species, which for 250 years has supplied the most valuable of the American furs gathered from its tribe, originally had a range wherever forests grew from New Jersey and Pennsylvania to Labrador and Hudson Bay, and from Colorado and central California to the barren grounds of the Arctic coast; and it was so plentiful that periodically it overflowed certain districts and spread in hordes, scat• tering far and wide in search of food. On the other hand, periods of nstonishing scarcity of martens occur every eight or ten years, no cause for which is known. The incessant trapping which goes on in the wilderness seems to have little effect upon them, hut this species every where rapidly fades away before the approach of civilization. They keep mostly to the trees. and hence like the denser parts of the forest, but they constantly descend to the ground for food, especially in winter, when they regularly hunt for hares and grouse of all kinds, trailing them with nose to the track like hounds. Their broad feet enable them to move rapidly, even over soft snow. They also hunt persistently for squirrels, chase them in the trees and on the ground, and enter their nests. To this diet is added whatever
mice and birds and small fare comes their way.
Martens have little to fear from native foes; the much larger fisher is said to kill them occa sionally, and it is not improbable that the great horned owl now and then manages to pounce on one, but very few of the carnivores care to taste their flesh unless driven to it by extreme hunger. They are trapped from November until toward March, when their coat begins to become ragged and dull in hue, and with the approach of the rutting season they are no longer attracted by the baits offered by trappers. This species averages about 18 inches in length of head and body, plus seven to eight inches of tail. its highly variable tints may be described as rich brown, somewhat lighter below. The winter fur is full and soft, an inch and a half deep. and has sparsely scat tered through it coarse black hairs which the furrier pulls out. The tail has longer hairs, but is less bushy than that of the fisher. The dis tinction between this animal and either the Euro pean pine marten or the Asiatic sable is not visible to an inexperienced eye, and it is only recently that naturalists have agreed to regard them as specifically distinct.
A much larger American species, unlike any thing in the Old World, is Pennant's marten iluete(a Pennanti). the `pekan' of French-Cana dian trappers and commonly known to Ameri cans as the 'black cat' or 'fisher,' the latter an erroneous name, since the animal never catches fish. It is the largest of its race, am l is described under FISHER. For illustration of the pine marten see Plate of Ftat-Ilexelsu ANIm.u.s. Two other species are native,' of Northern Europe. namely, the now rare and restricted pine or sweet marten (Nustela ?B arers) and the more common beech or stone marten (Mash ht [nine), which is not now regarded as an inhabitant of Orent Britain. The habits of both are substantially the same as have been described above, and they differ mainly in the pine marten having (like the American form) a yellowish throat and chest, while that of the beech marten is white. Consult Cones, Fur-Bearing Animals (Washington, 1877).