First.--The pine marten that is found in the country covered by soft woods, such as pine, spruce, white fir and birch. This is the most numerous and consequently the skins are of least value. They are of yellowish brown color on the back and orange on the throat, changing down to pale yellow or white on the belly. Second.--The rock marten; this is found in a country with stunted growth of spruce timber, a very mountainous district, the chief features of which are great crevices and boulders. Some of the skins of this variety are of great beauty, being dark on back, and throat and sides of gray or stone color. The third kind, which is the scarcest, and consequently of most value, is the marten found in the black spruce country, or swamps of northern Labrador. The fur of this variety is of a deep brown color throughout the pelt, and at times the tips of the hairs on the rump are silver gray or golden brown. The latter are very rare, and such skins have been sold in the London fur market for L5 a piece! They are also much larger than the other kinds, the skins of the male often being from 24 to 30 inches long, exclusive of the tail. The proper and most successful time for hunting is in the latter days of November and the whole month of December. They are hunted again in March, but by that time the sun has bleached out the color of the hair, which causes a depreciation in value. As a business, trapping is the only mode of killing martens. They are rarely seen to be shot at, as they pass the days in thickets or hollow stumps, only emerging after nightfall to hunt their food, which consists of mice, birds, young partridges, etc. Wooden traps are made in the well-known "figure-of-four" shape, and are set either on stumps or on the snow, flattened down with the snowshoes, and the trap built thereon. It is considered a very good day's work in December for a trapper to construct, bait and set up twenty-five such traps. A real marten hunter (nothing to do with my name) camps each night at the end of his day's work until he has from 150 to 200 traps set! He generally visits them once in ten days or a fortnight, and if the catch averages one marten to ten traps it is considered very fair. It takes the hunter two full days to rebait, clean out and freshen up such a line. When small steel traps are used instead of the deadfall, the hunter can cover more ground in a day and do better work than by making all wood traps. The steel traps are much more fortunate than the wood ones. In the "figure-of-four" traps, before the animal is caught it must seize the bait with its teeth and pull strong enough to set off the trap, whereas with the steel trap the mere fact of his coming to the doorway to smell insures his putting his foot in it, and in a moment up hangs Mr. Marten or Mr. Mink, as the case may be!