PINE MARTEN 1 47 



PINE MAETEN. 



MUSTELA MARIES Z. 



Once common, and with practically the same distribution 

 as the Wild Cat, the Marten seems to have been extirpated 

 as a resident species in the district even earlier than that 

 animal ; but, being apparently more given to wander, it has 

 since turned up at wide intervals in localities from which it 

 had long disappeared as a resident. Now, however, that it is 

 being daily driven farther and farther into the Highlands, the 

 chances of such stragglers reaching us are becoming more and 

 more remote. 



To Dr Hardy, of Oldcambus, we are indebted for bringing 

 together what little is known of the occurrence of the Marten 

 in the south-eastern part of the district, and I think I 

 cannot do better than quote his remarks as printed in 

 the "Proceedings" of the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club, 

 vol. viii., page 527 : " In the Statistical Account of the 

 united parishes of Cockburnspath and Oldcambus, p. 299, 

 prepared in December 1834, the Kev. Andrew Baird reports 

 that the Marten (Martes Fagorum) is said, a good number 

 of years ago, to have inhabited the woods near the Pease 

 Bridge. Till lately I had supposed that this hearsay had 

 originated from some traditions of the Wild Cats that 

 once made those woods their rendezvous ; but now I think 

 its correctness is undoubted, as Mr Peter Cowe, of Lochton, 

 has an actual specimen of the Marten to show, and had 

 heard of another in the very locality that I had questioned. 

 The one preserved in Mr Cowe's collection, he writes 

 of date 27th March 1879, 'was caught in Dowlaw dean 

 in 1862 in a rabbit- trap. I had it alive for a week, 

 but it would not eat. A short time, say a few weeks, 



