Marten
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Marten. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
the popular English name for any individual of Cuvier's sub-genus Mustela, or of Nilsson's Martes. They are limited to the N. portion of both hemispheres, ranging S. as far as 35° S. in America; one species , the Indian marten, occurs in Java. The species are very similar in their habits, arboreal , and, as a rule, carnivorous, though less so than the weasels. According to Rolleston, the common European marten "was ston, functionally the 'cat' of the ancients." But it is as fur-yielding animals that the martens are most important, and vast numbers are taken every year to supply the wants of civilization. The finest fur comes from the highest latitudes, principally from North America and Siberia. MARTEN According to Alston, the pine marten (Mustela martes or abietum) is the sole British species; though Bell includes beech marten or stone marten in the fauna.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a fur-bearing animal of the weasel family. The American or pine-marten is about twenty-four inches in total length. It is found throughout the northern row of states and northward to the timber limit. The fur is of a dark brown color and is much prized. The body is clothed with hairs of three lengths, long fine hairs, middle-length kinky hairs, and a close, fine, short fur, which renders the animal indifferent to cold or water. The marten is a flesh-eating animal with habits like those of the weasel. The fisher is a larger black marten ranging from Pennsylvania to Hudson Bay and westward. It has a length of about thirty-five inches including its tail, and is named from its proclivity for a fish diet. It is sometimes called the black-cat. The pine-marten is sometimes called the American sable. See Sable ; Fur
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's 1910 note that the fisher "is named from its proclivity for a fish diet" is now known to be wrong: fishers rarely eat fish, and are among the few predators that regularly kill porcupines; the name most likely derives from the old fur-trade word for polecat pelts (fitch). The fisher has also been moved out of Martes entirely, into its own genus Pekania, on genetic evidence published in 2008. The British pine marten Collier's mentions in 1921 was by then almost gone from England and Wales, surviving mainly in northwest Scotland; it has since been legally protected and deliberately reintroduced, with animals translocated to mid-Wales from 2015 and later to England. The great fur harvest "to supply the wants of civilization" has shrunk drastically, with wild marten trapping now regulated by quota and season across Canada, Russia and the northern United States.
Written for this edition, 2026.