Racial characters.—Color dark; throat patch bright orange or brownish.
Distribution.—From the Cascade Mountains westward. Marginal localities are (from [Taylor] and [Shaw], 1929: 10) head of Cascade River, Riverside, Chelan, Easton and Trout Lake. The record from Chelan seems doubtful, and the specimen may have come from somewhere around Lake Chelan, rather than from the town of that name.
Remarks.—Skulls of martens from many localities in western North America were studied in an effort to determine the relationship of the eastern pine marten (Martes americana) and the western marten. East of the Rocky Mountains the ranges of the two species approach closely, but each retains distinctive characters, notably the shape of the auditory bullae. The two species have not been taken together and the possibility of intergradation exists. On the basis of the evidence at hand, the two should be regarded as full species until positive proof of intergradation is established.
In the absence of sufficient material, the marten of the Cascades is referred to Martes caurina caurina. Fur graders distinguish between a dark "coast marten" and a paler "Cascade marten."
Martes caurina origenes ([Rhoads])
Mustela caurina origenes [Rhoads], Proc. Acad. at Sci. Philadelphia, 1902:458, September 30, 1902.
Martes caurina origenes [Miller], U. S. Nat. Mus. Bull., 79:93, December 31, 1912.
Type.—Obtained at Marvine Lodge, Garfield County, Colorado, by E. T. Seton on September 16, 1901; type in Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia.
Racial characters.—Paler than caurina with grayer head and yellow or white rather than deep orange or brown throat patch.
Distribution.—Mountainous areas of northeastern Washington and the Blue Mountains of southeastern Washington. Trappers have reported this marten from the mountains near Republic, Ferry County.