ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF MAMMALIA IN EUROPE. Dy 
small size, but their rapacity is extraordinary, and though 
they render invaluable service to the forester and the agri- 
culturist, they suffer relentless persecution. Within the 
present century, the Sable (Mustela zibellina) was found to 
the west of the Ural Mountains; but the demand for its 
fur has been so great that few specimens are now taken on 
this side of the Lena. 
The universal use of spring traps has already driven the 
Polecat (Mustela putorius) to its last retreat in Great Britain ; 
and, like the Otter and the Pine- and Beech-Martens, it is 
now becoming scarce in the more populous regions of the 
Continent. Truculent as it is, and guilty as it may be of 
the death of children in certain parts of Europe, the Pole- 
cat is unquestionably one of the most useful of all the 
beasts of prey, since it is the rat’s deadliest enemy.* 
The Nerz, Norz or Marsh Otter (Mustela lutreola)— 
the animal to which the stupid name “European Mink” 
has been given—is supposed to have within recent years 
become extinct in Germany, though its nocturnal habits, 
along with the inaccessible character of its habitat, may 
prove this conclusion to be premature. Though banished 
from the Hartz and the Thiiringerwald about the beginning 
of the century, it long continued to frequent the reedy pools 
and rivers of the districts round the south-western shores 
of the Baltic; but the last captures, near Biitzow, were made 
in the winter of 1891 and 1892. About the same time one 
was killed in the province of Posen. The same authority 
who has furnished us with these particulars, tells us that 
Marsh Otters are still fairly common in the north of 
Russia, and even in the extreme south of Austria; but a 
Livonian sportsman who wantonly shot a pair in 1899, 
chronicles his exploit as if it were of exceptional occur- 
rence, 
* We need hardly call attention here to the circumstance that the Ferret 
(Mustela Jwro) is now admitted to be the domesticated Polecat. It is not 
generally known, however, that all the rodents found in Britain, with the 
exception of the genus Lepus, have more or less carnivorous propensities, 
Not only rats, but voles, mice, dormice, and squirrels are apt to eat not 
only birds’ eggs, but the young of vertebrate animals when they are able to 
overpower them ; and we are convinced that on account of its ubiquitous 
distribution the common Rat (Jus decwmanus) is more destructive to game 
than any native beast or bird of prey. 
