By ilie Bev. Canon J. E. Jackson, F.S.A. 159 



At Vcrnditch are some marterns still remaining-. It is a pretty 

 little beast and of a deep chesnut colour, a kind of pole-cat less than 

 a fox, and the furre is much esteemed : not much inferior to sables. 

 It is the richest furre of our nation.^ Martial says of it ' Venator 

 capta marte superbus adest/ " 



Of trees he mentions one that grew naturally. " It had a white 

 leaf: the leaves are but rare: it is no big-ger than a cherry-tree : 

 they call it whiting or white wood. The rind will not rot, that is 

 to say, not in a long time, which makes it useful for stakes, which 

 is the only thing that I know it is good for. If you make a fire 

 with it, it strikes. I never saw it anywhere but hereabouts : the 

 leaf of it is almost as big as that of a nut-tree." « In another place 

 he calls it " the whitty or wayfaring tree : some grew on the south 

 down on the farm at Broad Chalk. In Herefordshire they are not 

 uncommon, and they used, when I was a boy to make pinnes for 

 the yoakes of their oxen for them, believing it had vertue to preserve 

 them from being forespoken, as they call it {i.e., bewitched] : and 

 they use to plant one by their dwelling house believing it to preserve 

 them from witches and evil eyes."^ The tree he speaks of is the 

 " whitten-tree,'' or wayfarer tree, a punning name given to it by 

 Gerard in his herbal, implying that it is ever on the road,* Aubrey 

 mentions another called the "coven-tree,"^ as used by carters to 

 make whips of. This seems to be a variety of spindle. 



' " Natural History of Wilts," p. 59. Dame Juliana Berners {c. 1460) reckons 

 the martron, or marteron, as one of the five beasts of chace. It appears to have 

 been the martin. In a list of jewels belonging to Queen Katherine Parr is " one 

 martron skynne with clawes of gold, the head garnished with emeralds, diamonds 

 and rubies." 



Their relative value as an article of import is shewn from a " Table of Excise " 

 of the year 1657 :— 



f " Sables : the timber of 40 skins £30 .0.0. 



I Black fox skins do. do. £10 . . ,* 



Purs -I ^'I^'i'trans do, do. 9.0,0 '. 



I Ermmes do. do. 1 .10 . . 



1 Eabbit skins every five score 1 .10 . Q '. 



I. Squirrels the thousand 5.0.0.' 



2 Aubrey, MS. 

 * Aubrey, " Natural History of Wilts," p. 56. 

 ^ Prior's "Popular Plants." 



