Female: Measurements of two subadult female topotypes are as
follows: Total length, 346, 318; length of tail, 116, 110; length
of hind foot, 39, 35.5.
Tail amounts to 50 per cent and 54 per cent of body-length
respectively. Length of hind foot more or less than (about equal
to) basal length.
The average differences in external measurements of the two sexes
are: Total length, 111; length of tail, 50; length of hind foot,
12.5.
_Externals._--As described in _Mustela frenata noveboracensis_.
_Color._--As described in _Mustela frenata noveboracensis_ except
that black tail-tip in series of 10 males in full winter pelage 60
(45-80) mm. long; thus averaging 39 per cent of length of tail
vertebrae.
_Skull and teeth._--Male (based on 3 adults): See measurements and
plates 16-18. As described in _Mustela frenata noveboracensis_
except that: Weight, 4.2 (4.1-4.3) grams; basilar length, 45.7
(44.9-46.9); zygomatic breadth more or less than (about equal to)
distance between anterior palatine foramen and anterior margin of
tympanic bulla; least width of palate rarely less than length of
P4; anterior margin of masseteric fossa behind or directly below
posterior half of m2.
Female (based on 2 subadults): See measurements and plates 31-33.
As described in _Mustela frenata noveboracensis_ except that:
Weight, 2.0 (1.9-2.1) grams; basilar length, 37.3, 38.2.
Comparison of the skull with that of _M. f. noveboracensis_ is
made in the account of that subspecies.
_Remarks._--Excepting a specimen in the Academy of Natural Sciences of
Philadelphia, obtained in 1893, and two in the Boston Society of
Natural History, obtained in 1925, I have seen no material of this
subspecies in addition to that examined by Bangs at the time he
prepared the original description in 1899.
Anderson (1945:56, 57) records a specimen, Canadian National Museum
Catalogue Number 18426, from Kamouraska County, Quebec, as of this
subspecies and thinks that _occisor_ occurs north of Maine "locally to
south side of lower St. Lawrence River in Quebec; probably also in
western New Brunswick."
So far as the available material of occisor permits one to judge, it is
distinguished from _noveboracensis_ by a combination of characters no
one of which invariably can be relied upon as diagnostic. Employing
adult males, average differences indicate that _M. f. occisor_ is
larger in each of the external and cranial measurements; tail
relatively longer; black tip of tail relatively shorter; mastoid and
zygomatic breadth relatively greater and zygomatic arches more nearly
square posteriorly.
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