The fisher is one of the largest and handsomest members of the weasel family. Like others of this group, it is a long-bodied, short-legged animal. It attains an extreme length of from 3 to 3½ feet and a weight of 18 or 20 pounds, but the average is decidedly lower than these figures. In general, it is like a gigantic marten, and from its size and dark color is sometimes known locally as the “black cat” or “black fox.” It lives in the forested parts of Canada and the United States, where it originally occurred from the southern shores of Hudson Bay and Great Slave Lake south throughout most of eastern Canada and New England and along the Alleghanies to Tennessee; also in the Great Lakes region, south to the southern end of Lake Michigan; along the Rocky Mountains to Wyoming, down the Cascades to northern California, and from the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia and Maine to the Pacific coast of southeastern Alaska and British Columbia. They still occur regularly in the Adirondacks of New York and the Green Mountains of Vermont and in Maine, but are gone from most of the southern border of their former range. Fishers are powerful and agile animals, probably for their size by far the swiftest and most deadly of all our forest carnivores. So swift and dextrous are they in the tree-tops that they not only capture squirrels without difficulty, but are able to overtake and kill the marten, almost an incredible feat. When in pursuit of their prey or when alarmed, they make astonishing leaps from tree to tree. While not so speedy on the ground as some other animals, they have the tireless persistence of their kind and capture snowshoe hares in fair chase. Among the habitants of the forest the fisher is a fearless and savage marauder, which feeds on frogs, fish, and nearly every bird and mammal its domain affords, except species so large that their size protects them. Porcupines are among its favorite victims and are killed by being turned over and attacked on their underparts. As a consequence of such captures, the fisher often has many quills imbedded in its head and the foreparts of its body. The fisher, like many other predatory animals, has more or less regular “beats” along which they make their rounds over the territory each occupies. These rounds commonly require several days to accomplish. In winter they keep mainly along wooded ridges, where they are trapped. It follows trap lines like the wolverine and eats the bait or the captured animal, but, unlike the wolverine, appears to have no propensity for further mischief. When overtaken by dogs or when at war with any of its forest rivals, it is so active and ferocious that it is worthy all due respect from antagonists several times its size.