150 BRITISH MAMMALS 



Welsh caves and relatively superficial deposits show that it 

 lingered on almost to the Prehistoric or Neolithic period. 



Genus : MUSTELA. THE MARTENS 

 The Martens are handsome Mustelids, larger in size than the 

 next genus, which contains the typical Weasels. The body is 

 long, slender, and flexible, though not so disproportionately 

 elongated as in the True Weasels. The head is broad across the 

 forehead, and the muzzle is pointed, the nose being somewhat 

 prolonged beyond the lips. The eyes are large and prominent, 

 and the ears are well developed, broad and rounded at the ends, 

 and heavily furred inside. The paws are somewhat cat-like in 

 shape, and their soles are densely furred between the naked pads. 

 The tail is long and bushy. The under-fur is abundant, soft, 

 and almost woolly, and of a lighter colour than the outer hairs 

 which mark its surface. These are long and silky. The 

 celebrated sable is a marten. Its coat is singularly beautiful,, 

 because both the outer hairs and the inner fur are a beautiful 

 reddish-brown.^ The Martens differ from the Weasels (amongst 

 other points) in possessing four pairs of premolars in each jaw, 

 though the first premolar is small and with only one root. The 

 carnassial teeth are well developed, and possess sharp, bi-lobed 

 blades. In the upper jaw there is only one pair of molars, which 

 are tubercular and very broad transversely, narrow longitudinally, 

 and set nearly at right angles to the fourth premolar. Another 

 feature of the teeth in the Martens is the smallness of the lower 

 incisors and the way in which they crowd together so that they 

 are not placed in an even line. The upper incisors are placed 

 regularly in a straight line at right angles to the length of the jaw. 

 They are long, and rather narrow. 



The Martens have not got the unpleasant smell possessed by 

 the True Weasels and derived from the usual anal glands. 

 They are graceful and beautiful creatures, and the beech marten 

 (which is not an inhabitant of the British Islands, as supposed by 

 earlier writers) was domesticated by the Greeks and Romans 

 ^ " Sable " paint brushes are generally made of squirrels' hair. 



