MAMMALS 



dergraduate at Cambridge surprised him by- 

 stating that from time to time a considerable 

 number of live martens had been sent to him 

 from Ireland, several of which had escaped 

 and were then living at large in his neigh- 

 bourhood in the south of England ; the same 

 thing may well have happened in Norfolk 

 {or Suffolk) without its being suspected.' In 

 the Norwich Mercury of 2 1 December 1 8 1 1 

 is the report of the 'Suffolk Gamekeepers' 

 Annual Meeting ' held at Bury St. Edmunds 

 on 9 December of that year, at which a prize 

 was given to one Sharnton as the most suc- 

 cessful gamekeeper. This man had the over- 

 looking of 4,000 acres, and among the' vermin' 

 destroyed by him in the preceding year are 

 enumerated three martens.' The Messrs. 

 Paget refer to the marten as occurring 

 * formerly at Herringfleet and Tofts ; ' now 

 extremely rare.' A specimen was now and 

 then captured in Ubbeston Wood during the 

 first quarter of the last century, and the 

 writer's father remembers having seen one in 

 that parish nailed upon a barn. 



15. Polecat. Putorius putorius, h'mn. 



Bell — Mustek putorius. 



There is abundant evidence to show that 

 this animal was formerly common in most 

 parts of the county, and until about the 

 middle of the last century it does not appear 

 to have been considered rare. The late Rev. 

 H. T. Frere, writing in the Zoologist ior 1849, 

 p. 2493, states that * the polecat is to be 

 found on most rabbit warrens. In some parts 

 of Suffolk it is far too common.' The con- 

 tinual persecution however to which its pre- 

 dacious habits have always rendered it liable, 

 together with the greatly increased area de- 

 voted to game preserving, in time began to 

 make an appreciable reduction in the numbers 

 of this animal, and its almost complete ex- 

 tirpation from the greater part of the county 

 has gradually been effected. In the west and 

 north-west the polecat appears to have held 

 its ground longer than elsewhere. In the 



' See an article entitled ' Martens in Suffolk,' 

 T. Southwell, Zool. 1877, p. 338, vifhere the 

 number is stated, as given by Mr. Gurney in his 

 communication to the Norf. and Nor. Nat. Society's 

 Trans, ii. 224, as 'forty-three' ! — an error which 

 has been extensively copied. Mr. Southwell has 

 since been at considerable pains to get at the 

 original newspaper report, which he ultimately 

 discovered in the Norwich Mercury of 2 1 December 

 18 1 1, where, as above stated, the number of 

 martens is ' three ' and not ' forty-three.' It is 

 impossible now to say how the original error arose. 



' Probably Toft Monks near Aldeby, which is 

 in Norfolk. 



Mildenhall district, and especially about the 

 fen country between that town and Ely, it is 

 still frequently met with. A gamekeeper 

 from whom the Rev. B. P. Oakes obtained a 

 specimen captured at Beck Row, a hamlet of 

 Mildenhall, about the year 1897, told him 

 that he had killed thirty-eight ! including 

 young ones, in the course of the year, and 

 that he believed polecats to be common in 

 the fens towards Ely, and that they worked 

 up to Beck Row along the dykes. In 1898 

 Mr. Travis, the Bury St. Edmunds taxi- 

 dermist, received one from Cavenham, some 

 7 or 8 miles north-west of that town, and 

 also one from Mildenhall in the same year, 

 both these examples being killed during 

 February, on the 3rd and 15th respectively. 

 Three others obtained in the Mildenhall dis- 

 trict during the same year were seen and 

 examined by the Rev. J. G. Tuck. The 

 following curious capture of a polecat is from 

 the Ipswich yournal of 23 February 1895 : 

 ' At Isleham in the Cambridgeshire fens ' a 

 polecat has been found by the lockkeeper 

 with its feet frozen to the top of the lock 

 gate. It had evidently stopped on the gate 

 to watch some object of prey.' In the same 

 journal of the date of 28 March i888 one 

 of these animals is reported to have been 

 caught at Mildenhall in a trap set for an 

 otter. Mr. W. G. Clarke, in a letter to the 

 writer, refers to the capture of one of these 

 animals about the year 1898 at Lakenheath, 

 and also to its former occurrence both at 

 Fakenham and Euston. At Barnham in the 

 same district Mr. F. Norgate started a very 

 big polecat from a rabbit hole on 21 August 

 1890. As regards the north-eastern part of 

 the county, the last polecats known by Mr. 

 W. M. Crowfoot of Beccles to have been 

 killed in his neighbourhood were trapped at 

 Worlingham about the year 1859 or i860. 

 A very large male was exhibited at a dealer's 

 stall at Yarmouth market in November 1867. 

 It was said to have been killed somewhere in 

 the neighbourhood, but whether in Norfolk 

 or Suffolk was not specified." The late Rev. 

 H. T. Frere, writing to Mr. Southwell in 

 December 1870, referring to a period about 

 twenty years previous to that date, mentions 

 this species as being ' common enough about 

 Diss.' He further stated, 'They seem to 

 leave the lower grounds about October, and 

 when I lived at Roydon Hall we were sure 

 to catch several about that time under the 

 roots of a particular pollard oak, through 



1 The river Lark at Isleham forms the boundary 

 between Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. 



" T. E. Gunn, Zoologist, 1869, p. 1925. 



221 



