SABLE, or SABLE Animal, in Zoology, a creature of the weasel-kind, called by authors mustela zibellina. See MUSTELA, MAMMALIA Index.
The chase of these animals, in the more barbarous times of the Russian empire, was the employment, or rather task, of the unhappy exiles in Siberia. As that country is now become more populous, the sables have in a great measure quitted it, and retired farther north and east, to live in desert forests and mountains: they live near the banks of rivers, or in the little islands in them; on this account they have, by some, been supposed to be the Zoëgor of Aristotle (Hist. An. lib. viii. c. 5.) which he classes with the animals conversant among waters.
At present the hunters of sables form themselves into troops, from five to forty each: the last subdivide into lesser parties, and each chooses a leader; but there is one that directs the whole: a small covered boat is provided.
provided for each party, loaded with provisions, a dog and net for every two men, and a vessel to bake their bread in: each party also has an interpreter for the country they penetrate into. Every party then sets out according to the course their chief points out: they go against the stream of the rivers, drawing their boats up, till they arrive in the hunting country: there they stop, build huts, and wait till the waters are frozen, and the season commences: before they begin the chase, their leader assembles them, when they unite in a prayer to the Almighty for success, and then separate: the first sable they take is called God's sable, and is dedicated to the church.
They then penetrate into the woods: mark the trees as they advance, that they may know their way back; and in their hunting quarters form huts of trees, and bank up the snow round them: near these they lay their traps; then advance farther, and lay more traps, still building new huts in every quarter, and return successively to every old one to visit the traps, and take out the game to skin it, which none but the chief of the party must do: during this time they are supplied with provisions by persons who are employed to bring it on sledges, from the places on the road, where they are obliged to form magazines, by reason of the impracticability of bringing quantities through the rough country they must pass. The traps are a sort of pit-fall, with a loose board placed over it, baited with sh or flesh: when sables grow scarce, the hunters trace them in the new-fallen snow to their holes: place their nets at the entrance; and sometimes wait, watching two or three days for the coming out of the animal: it has happened that these poor people have, by the failure of their provisions, been so pinched with hunger, that, to prevent the cravings of appetite, they have been reduced to take two thin boards, one of which they applied to the pit of the stomach, the other to the back, drawing them tight together by cords placed at the ends: such are the hardships our fellow-creatures undergo to supply the wantonness of luxury.
The season of chase being finished, the hunters re-assemble, make a report to their leader of the number of sables each has taken; make complaints of offenders against their regulations; punish delinquents; share the booty; then continue at the head-quarters till the rivers are clear of ice; return home, and give to every church the dedicated furs.