50 CARNIVORA 



are nearly unanimous in fixing the date of their last Foumart 

 somewhere between 1840 and 1850. According to Dr 

 Crombie, one was shot about a mile from North Berwick about 

 1860, and the only Midlothian Polecats Mr Charles Cook has 

 a note of are one obtained on the farm of Fala Hill, and one 

 seen at Crosswood Hill, both a number of years prior to 1880. 

 At Edmonstone, near Liberton, one, which was afterwards 

 trapped by the keepers, was seen by Mr James Haldane about 

 thirty-five years ago (vide Mr Harvie-Brown's article on the 

 Polecat in the " Zoologist " for 1881, p. 161). In Linlithgow- 

 shire nine were killed at Lochcote between 1838 and 

 1845 by the keeper, David Kerr, whose son I have recently 

 interrogated on the subject. In 1847 Kerr also killed two 

 at Champfleurie in the same county; and Professor Duns 

 tells me that shortly after he went to Torphichen, in 1844, 

 he noticed Polecats nailed to a keeper's wall. In Fyfe's 

 "Summer Life on Land and Water at South Queensferry" 

 (1851), the following passage occurs at page 148 : " Amongst 

 the ferce naturce of Barnbougle, or rather of Dalmeny Park, 

 no rambler, gifted with the sense of smell, could possibly 

 omit the fitchet, foumart, or polecat (Mustela putorius), one 

 of our finest furred animals, which we have reason to judge 

 must be abundant in these wooos, although indeed a species 

 of fungus is found in them, which might, from its alarming 

 smell, be apt to mislead to the belief that a polecat 

 was near." The qualification with which the author closes 

 his remarks will, it is to be feared, render the rest of his 

 statement practically worthless in the eyes of most 

 naturalists. 



Mr Sam Martin, for many years keeper at Hopetoun, 

 writes me that the last was killed there fully thirty years ago. 

 Mr Durham of Boghead, near Bathgate (son of the late 

 Mr Durham Weir, MacGillivray's able correspondent), has 



