“Chatterer, you and your Cousin Happy Jack may well be thankful that Spite the Marten doesn't live about here, for he is very fond of Squirrels and delights to hunt them. He can leap from tree to tree quite as easily as either of you, and the only possible means of escape for a Squirrel he is hunting is a hole too small for Spite to get into. No Squirrel is more graceful in the trees than is Spite. “But he by no means confines himself to the trees. He is quite at home on the ground, and there he moves with much of the quickness of Shadow the Weasel. He delights to hunt Rabbits and he covers great distances, being even more of a traveller than Billy Mink. He doesn't kill for the love of killing, but merely for food. If he kills more than he can eat at a meal he buries it, and when he is hungry again he returns to it. Like all the other members of his family, he is a great hunter of Mice. Also he catches many birds, especially those birds which nest on the ground. Birds, eggs, Frogs, Toads, some insects and fish vary his bill of fare. But unlike his smaller cousins, he eats some other things besides flesh, including certain nuts, berries and honey. “He isn't in the least social with his own kind but prefers to live alone and is always ready to fight if he meets another Marten. Being so great a traveler he has several dens. Mrs. Spite makes her nest of grass and moss in a hollow tree as a rule, occasionally in a hole in the ground. She has from one to five babies in the spring. Spite is not a good father, for he has nothing to do with his family. “As I told you in the beginning he is found only in the great forests of the North. The darker and deeper they are, the better it suits him. His own cousin, Pekan the Fisher, and Tufty the Lynx, are probably the only natural enemies he has much cause to fear. His one great enemy is man. His coat is one of the most highly prized of all furs and he is persistently hunted and trapped. In fact, his coat is one of the chief prizes of the fur trappers.