CLASS MAMMALIA. 49 



Mr. H. M. Wallis says (ZooL, 1879, p. 264): "'My father 

 remembers seeing five full-grown Polecats killed together in a 

 drain, by a terrier, near Chelmsford." 



Mr. Miller Christy writes : " Mr. William Raeburn informs 

 me that he saw, in the possession of the host of the Tower 

 Arms inn, at South Weald, a Polecat killed there about 

 twenty years ago." 



Mr. Reginald W. Christy reports (Essex Nat., vol. ii., 

 p. 37) : " The last specimen known to have been killed in 

 the neighbourhood of Roxwell was trapped on the Boyton 

 Hall Farm in or about the year 1855." 



The food of the Polecat is as varied as that of the other 

 members of the family, and embraces, according to some 

 authorities, fish, frogs, and other reptiles. 



There is not much difference in appearance between a 

 dark Ferret and a Polecat ; and the probability is that the 

 Ferret is simply a domesticated Polecat, but domesticated in a 

 warmer climate than ours. This, no doubt, accounts for the 

 greater susceptibility to cold of the domesticated animal. 

 Part of this tenderness is due, doubtless, to the conditions 

 under which Ferrets are reared. Mine, reared in an open 

 pig-court, are never the shivering animals born in warmer 

 situations. On the contrary, I have observed them to roll 

 and tumble in snow, apparently without discomfort, if not 

 with enjoyment. 



Mustela martes, Linn. COMMON MARTEN. 



The Rev. R. Lubbock, in his Fauna of Norfolk (1845), 

 says this animal is still occasionally found in Essex, and 

 there is good ground for hoping that the graceful and active 

 creature yet exists in the county. It was formerly very com- 

 mon, and I have heard old sportsmen speak of shooting it 

 from deserted magpies' nests. 



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