, are brought
annually from Santa Fe. Dressed furs for edgings, linings, caps,
muffs, &c., such as squirrel, genet, fitch-skins, and blue rabbit, are
received from the north of Europe; also cony and hare's fur; but the
largest importations are from London, where is concentrated nearly the
whole of the North American fur trade.
Such is the present state of the fur trade, by which it will appear that
the extended sway of the Hudson's Bay Company, and the monopoly of
the region of which Astoria was the key, has operated to turn the main
current of this opulent trade into the coffers of Great Britain, and
to render London the emporium instead of New York, as Mr. Astor had
intended.
We will subjoin a few observations on the animals sought after in this
traffic, extracted from the same intelligent source with the preceding
remarks.
Of the fur-bearing animals, "the precious ermine," so called by way of
preeminence, is found, of the best quality, only in the cold regions of
Europe and Asia. * Its fur is of the most perfect whiteness, except the
tip of its tail, which is of a brilliant shining black. With these back
tips tacked on the skins, they are beautifully spotted, producing an
effect often imitated, but never equalled in other furs. The ermine is
of the genus mustela (weasel), and resembles the common weasel in its
form, is from fourteen to sixteen inches from the tip of the nose to the
end of the tail.
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