THE WEASEL FAMILY i53 



of the pine marten outside the British Islands includes the whole 

 of Northern Europe and Western Siberia. Its place in Southern 

 Germany, France, and Italy, Eastern Europe, and South-western 

 Asia is taken by the beech marten, which is distinguished by the 

 white coloration of the under parts, and by slight differences 

 in the molar teeth. It is melancholy to read in the self-satisfied 

 records of " naturalists," how a fine pine marten was shot quite 

 close to London, in Hertfordshire, not many years ago, and how 

 another was destroyed with equal gusto in some other Home 

 County, and so many more in North Wales. If the persons who 

 shot these martens would only strip off their clothes, let their 

 hair grow, and become wild men of the woods, one would not so 

 much mind their ravages on the British fauna ; as it is, they are 

 not nearly so interesting, physically and mentally, as the creatures 

 they destroy, and are generally, in addition, an incongruous blot 

 on the landscape. If martens received a reasonable degree of 

 protection and became more accustomed to man, they would 

 be beautiful objects in the British woods as they scrambled about 

 the branches in pursuit of birds or squirrels ; and if other wild 

 birds and beasts not so disastrously harmful as the rat or the 

 sparrow were allowed to co-exist, the marten would have enough 

 to feed on without resorting to occasional ravages on the 

 poultry yard. 



Genus: PUTORIUS. THE TRUE WEASELS 

 The True Weasels (minks, polecats, stoats, and weasels) differ 

 from the martens in having only three pairs of premolar teeth in 

 each jaw. The bodies, also, are proportionately more elongated. 

 The tail is shorter. Members of this genus also differ from the 

 martens in the foul smell of the anal glands, and perhaps, also, in 

 the greater difference in size between the males and the females. 

 It must be admitted that there is much to be said against elevat- 

 ing this generic distinction between the members of the sub- 

 family Musteline, especially as many extinct forms of True 

 Weasel possessed four pairs of premolar teeth in one or other 

 or both of the jaws. 



