he two countries, it is in the same direction. So with the great
family of the field mice. The largest true arvicola seems to be the
yellow-cheeked mouse of Hudson's Bay, and the biggest representative
of the family on either continent is the muskrat. In most of its
varieties the wolf of North America seems to be inferior in strength
and courage to that of northern Europe and Asia; but the direct
reverse is true with the grizzly bear, which is merely a somewhat
larger and fiercer variety of the common European brown bear. On the
whole, the Old World bison, or so-called aurochs, appears to be
somewhat more formidable than its American brother; but the difference
against the latter is not anything like as great as the difference in
favor of the American wapiti, which is nothing but a giant
representative of the comparatively puny European stag. So with the
red fox. The fox of New York is about the size of that of France, and
inferior in size to that of Scotland; the latter in turn is inferior
in size to the big fox of the upper Missouri, while the largest of all
comes from British America. There is no basis for the belief that the
red fox was imported here from Europe; its skin was a common article
of trade with the Canadian fur traders from the earliest times. On the
other hand, the European lynx is much bigger than the American. The
weasels afford cases in point, showing how hard it is to make a
general law on the subject. The American badger is very much smaller
than the European, and the American otter very much larger than the
European otter. Our pine marten, or sable, compared with that of
Europe, shows the very qualities of which you speak; that is, its
skull is slenderer, the bones are somewhat lighter, the teeth less
stout, the form showing more grace and less strength. But curiously
enough this is reversed, with even greater emphasis, in the minks of
the two continents, the American being much the largest and strongest,
with stouter teeth, bigger bones, and a stronger animal in every way.
The little weasel is on the whole smaller here, while the big weasel,
or stoat, is, in some of its varieties at least, largest on this side;
and, of the true weasels, the largest of all is the so-called fisher,
a purely American beast, a fierce and hardy animal which habitually
preys upon as hard fighting a creature as the raccoon, and which could
eat all the Asiatic and European varieties of weasels without an
effort.

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