A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



species has also been observed at East Berg- 

 holt, a mile or two further down the river, by 

 Mr. C. Whiting. Cats not unfrequently kill 

 this animal, as well as the other British 

 shrews. 



The Oared Shrew {Sorex rtmifer. Bell), 

 formerly considered to be specifically distinct, 

 but now looked upon as a variety of C. fodiens, 

 also occurs in the county. The under parts 

 in this animal are almost as dark as the back, 

 and the general colour much resembles that of 

 the mole. On 5 September 1900, in a 

 meadow at Blaxhall, I met with one of these 

 big dark-coloured shrews. It was a pregnant 

 female, and so large that before picking it up 

 I took it for a half-grown mole. Hoping to 

 have leisure to examine it carefully on the 



morrow, I placed it in a large cage with 

 earth, water, a bed of dry grass and a plentiful 

 supply of earthworms, one of which it at 

 once seized and devoured. But in the morn- 

 ing it had disappeared most unaccountably. 

 This shrew was certainly larger than a full- 

 grown house mouse [M. musculus). Its climb- 

 ing powers were considerable, for it not only 

 easily ascended the upright wires of the cage, 

 but even made its way along the top, clinging, 

 back downwards, to the wires. The fact of 

 its being with young at this season seems to 

 denote that more than one litter may be pro- 

 duced during the year. Many years ago one 

 was seen by the writer on the bank of a pond 

 in the same parish which he believes to have 

 been still larger. 



CARNIVORA 



13. Fox. Fulpes vu/peSy Linn. 

 Bell — Vulpes vulgaris. 

 In Suffolk foxes are not often met with far 

 from the hunting districts, which are situated 

 (broadly speaking) in the central, southern and 

 extreme western parts of the county, hunted 

 respectively by the Suffolk, Essex and Suffolk, 

 and Newmarket and Thurlow foxhounds. 

 From time to time one of these animals 

 makes its appearance among the game pre- 

 serves in other parts of the county, where it 

 does not always receive a very hearty welcome. 

 On the Campsea Ashe estate, which for 

 many years has been occasionally visited by 

 these animals, one was shot in the autumn of 

 1902 at a fir plantation on Tunstall Heath, 

 and another was killed at Ramsholt in 

 December of that year. About the same 

 time a fox was known to frequent the neigh- 

 bourhood of Pettistree. The late Mr. Hele 

 of Aldeburgh' gives an instance of a dead 

 fox having been found floating in the river 

 near that town in 1864, and in the same 

 year of an old and decrepit vixen having 

 been trapped on a warren close by. Formerly 

 these animals must have been generally dis- 

 tributed throughout the county, and their 

 frequent depredations in the poultry yard and 

 among the young lambs led to a reward be- 

 ing offered in many parishes for their destruc- 

 tion. In the churchwardens' accounts for 

 the parish of Freston near Ipswich there are 

 several entries of sums paid during the latter 

 part of the eighteenth century for the destruc- 

 tion of foxes, the amount varying at that 

 time from u. to 2;. bd. per head. 



Jottings about Aldeburgh, by N. F. Hale, 1870. 



14. Pine Marten. Mustela martes, Linn. 



Bell — Maries abietum. 

 In a part of the country where the destruc- 

 tion of every beast or bird supposed to be in 

 any way harmful to game goes on unceas- 

 ingly year after year one can hardly expect 

 to find many carnivorous mammals still sur- 

 viving. The larger species are usually the 

 first to disappear, and that beautiful and 

 graceful animal the marten, the largest of our 

 British weasels, has long been extinct as a 

 resident species. Yet as lately as the year 

 1889 a marten was shot on 29 May in a 

 Scotch fir plantation at Sutton near Wood- 

 bridge, and another is said to have been seen 

 at the same time. According to a report of 

 this occurrence in the Field of 13 July 1889, 

 p. 45, the animal destroyed was a male, 

 measuring 27 inches in length and weighing 

 a trifle over 4 lb. When shot it was carrying 

 in its mouth a full-grown young wood-pigeon. 

 It was stuffed by Mr. Asten of Woodbridge. 

 As it is probably not less than sixty or seventy 

 years since the marten became extinct in 

 Suffolk it is difficult to account for its re- 

 appearance after so long an interval. If these 

 two individuals could possibly have wandered 

 from any existing habitat of the species, they 

 did well to escape detection, considering the 

 distance they must have travelled. Remark- 

 ing on some similar occurrences of this animal 

 in Norfolk in comparatively recent times 

 Mr. Southwell {Trans. Nor/, and Nor. Nat. 

 Soc. ii. 668) writes as follows : 'That these 

 were escapes I have no doubt, although un- 

 able to trace them. To show how easily 

 this may occur, I was informed by a friend 

 (Prof. Newton) that some years ago an un- 



220 



