THE CARNIVORA. 53 



rarer and rarer throughout these islands, until neighbour- 

 hoods where it was till com23aratively recent years not 

 uncommon, now know it no longer. Accord- 

 ing to Messrs Harvie-Brown and Buckley, it 

 never occurred in the Hebrides. To Ireland it is not 

 indigenous. 



Any kind of live food seems acceptable to this voracious 

 beast, among its favourite items being poultry, ducks, 

 rabbits, and young game-birds, frogs, toads, 

 and even eels, a picture of a polecat with a 

 large eel in its jaws figuring in the " Naturalist's Library," 

 in Mr Lydekker's volume on 'British Mammals.' There 

 would be nothing remarkable in its taking eels, since they 

 will often wriggle through the wet grass from one water to 

 another, besides which the polecat is a powerful swimmer. 

 Most of its hunting is done by night, but one was shot in 

 broad daylight when pursuing something in a hedge on a 

 private property (July 1893) in Suffolk. 



The female brings forth five or six young in early 

 summer, rearing them in some rabbit-burrow. 



In colouring, this animal is of a uniform dark brown, 

 some of the longer fur being almost black. White mark- 

 ings are present on the sides of the head and near the 

 mouth. The bushy tail is shorter than that 

 Appearance, ^^ ^^^ marten. Maximum weight, about 



6 lb. 

 [The Ferret is merely a domesticated variety of the j^ole- 

 cat, from which it is easily distinguished by its inferior 

 size and the lighter colour of the fur. Never- 

 theless, escaped ferrets are continually re- 

 ported as genuine polecats. The ferret, as is the case with 

 most domesticated races, multiplies much more rajjidly 

 than its wild relative, the litter numbering as many as 

 eight or nine, and a second litter being frequently pro- 

 duced.] 



The Stoat, or Ermine, is not more than two-thirds the 



