MARSTON MOOR 



MARTEN 



65 



Marston Moor, in the West Riding of York- 

 shire, 7 miles \V. of York, the scene of a great 

 parliamentary victory, 2d July 1644. The royal- 

 ist arniy, about 2-2,000 strong, was led by Prince 

 Rupert ; the parliamentary troops numbered 15,000 

 foot and 9000 horse, consisting of a Scotch army 

 under the Earl of Leven, a Yorkshire army under 

 Fairfax, and one from the eastern counties under 

 the Karl of Manchester, with Cromwell ami Craw- 

 ford. The battle began alwut seven o'clock in the 

 evening. On the king's left Hank the horse under 

 Goring scattered the forces of Fairfax ; on his right 

 the troopers of the fiery Rupert were broken for 

 the first time by Cromwell's ' Ironsides.' Hastily 

 recalling his men from the chase, Cromwell saved 

 the day by supporting Manchester and the Scotch 

 infantry against the king's foot under Newcastle, 

 and routing Goring'a horse flushed with their vic- 

 tory. Before nightfall the success was complete, 

 and the king's army fled in utter rout to York, 

 leaving 4000 men dead on the field ; among them 

 all Newcastle's ' Whitecoats.' This victory gave 

 the whole north to the Parliament, and first b'rought 

 into prominence Cromwell's military genius. See 

 S. K. Gardiner's History of the Ciril War (1886), 

 and Edward Lamplough s Yorkshire Battles (1891). 



Marsupials, lit. 'pouched animals' (Mar- 

 tiipinliti, I>ii/ft/i//i'i, or Mftut/ierin), a sub-class 

 of mammals, the members of which, with the 

 exception of the American opossums, are now 

 restricted to the Australian and A ustro- Malayan 

 regions. They are in many ways simpler than the 

 higher mammals, notably in the structure of the 

 brain and in the absence of a close connection 

 between the unborn young and the womb of the 

 mother. The young are born very helpless, after 

 a short gestation, and are usually stowed away in 

 an external pouch or marsupium, where they are 

 fed from the enclosed teats. From the wide occur- 

 rence of fragmentary marsupial remains in Triassic 

 and Jurassic strata both in the Old ami the New- 

 World, it seems that the jpouch-liearers have lieen 

 once widely distributed. Before the stronger mam- 

 mals which rose up after them they have, however, 

 succumbed, except in the case of the above-men- 

 tioned refugees in neo-tropical forests, and tlin-e 

 saved by the insulation of the Australasian regions 

 before any higher mammals gained a foothold. In 

 the retreat thus afforded the marsupials have de- 

 veloped along numerous lines, as it were prophesy- 

 ing the carnivores, insectivores, rodents, ami herbi- 

 vores among the placenta! mammalia. Thus, apart 

 from the carnivorous and insectivorous American 

 opossums ( l)i<lelphyida>), of which one is strictly 

 North American and the rest neo-tropical, there 

 are five Australasian families : the Dasyuridse or 

 'native cats,' carnivorous and insectivorous mar- 

 supials as large as wolves and as small as mice, of 

 which very pronounced types are the Tasmanian 

 Mi^'er' (thylacinus) and the native ant-eater 

 ( Mi/rmetobitu) ; the rodent-like Peramelidse or 

 bandicoots ; the herbivorous kangaroos and kan- 

 garoo-rats (Mucropodidte); the very varied family 

 of arlKireal I'halangers (I'/ialnnifistidte), including 

 the Hying O|HISSIUHH (1'etaurista, &c.), the native 

 sloth or Tioala, the honey-sucking Tarsipes, and 

 other curious forms ; and finally the Phascolomyid.T 

 or wombats, rodent-like root-eating forms about the 

 size of badgers. 



See MAMMALS; aim the well-known works of Owen, 

 Huxley, and others on Vertebrates; the relevant parts of 

 Cawell's and the .s/<m</.ir</ \ntnrnl Hi>t,>rn : Chisholm'* 

 tratm. of Vogt and Spechf* Mammali (1887); Water- 

 hone. Natural Hittory of Mammalia, i. (1846); and 

 Gould'* Mammali of Australia ( 3 Tola. 1845-63). 



Mars) as, a Phrygian satyr, who, having found 

 a llute that played of itself, which Athena had 

 thrown away, was rash enough to challenge Apollo 

 317 



to a musical contest, subject to the condition that 

 the victor should do what he liked to the van- 

 quished. Apollo played upon the cithara, Marsyas 

 upon the flute, and the Muses decided in favour of 

 the god, who punished his rival's temerity by bind- 

 ing him to a tree and flaying him alive. * From 

 his blood sprung the river Marsyas ; his statue 

 stood in many ancient cities, a monument of the 

 folly of presumption. 



Martaban, a town in Burma, on the right 

 bank of the Sal ween, opposite to Maulmain ( Moul- 

 mein ). It is reputed to have been built in 576 by 

 the first king of Pegu, and was down to the end of 

 the first quarter of the 14th century the capital of 

 the kingdom. It was taken by the king of Siarn 

 two centuries and a, half later, and has been twice 

 captured by the British, in 1824 and in 1852. Pop. 

 1781. The Bay of Martaban receives the rivers 

 Irawadi and Salween. 



Martel, CHARLES. See CHARLES MAETEL. 



Martello Towers are round towers for coast 

 defence, about 40 feet high, built most solidly, and 

 situated on the beach. They were so called 

 because at Mortella Point in Corsica a small round 

 tower stood admirably an immense cannonade from 

 an English fleet under Lord Hood in 1794. They 

 were mostly erected at the end of the 18th century 

 as a defence against Flench invasion, and are now 

 regarded as obsolete. 



Marten (Mustela), a genus of digitigrade car- 

 nivorous quadrupeds of the family Moatelidee, dif- 

 fering from weasels in having an additional false 

 molar on each side above and below, a small 

 tuliercle on the inner side of the lower carnivorous 

 cheek-teeth, and the tongue not rough characters 

 which are regarded as indicating a somewhat less 

 extreme carnivorous propensity. The body is elon- 

 gated and supple, as in weasels, the legs short, and 

 the toes separate, with sharp long claws ; the palms 

 and soles are generally, but not always, furry. The 

 ears are larger than in weasels, and the tail is 

 bushy. The martens exhibit great agility and 

 gracefulness in their movements, and are very 

 expert in climbing trees, among which they gener- 

 ally live. There are nine or ten species in this 

 genus, which are distributed over Europe, Asia, 



The Pine Marten (Mustela marttt). 



Malaya, and North America. The American 

 ' Pekan ' (M. pennanti) is the largest species, 

 measuring as much as 46 inches from the snout to 

 the tip of the tail. The most valuable species of 

 marten is the European Sable (M. zibellina). Two 

 species of marten, closely resembling one another, 

 occur in Great Britain the Common or Beech 

 Marten (M. foina) and the Pine Marten (M. 

 tiiurtrs). They are often hunted with foxhounds; 

 for this and other reasons they are getting much 

 less plentiful, though still to be frequently met 

 with in certain localities. 



