218 Practical Game Preserving. 



having reference to some attribute. " Fitchet " and " fitch " 

 are names having reference to its hair, and are mostly used 

 in the western and southern counties. " Fulimart " and 

 " foumart/' both evidently corruptions of " foul marten," are 

 chiefly employed in the north. Besides these there are many 

 others of occasional occurrence, and we have heard the 

 polecat termed the "wild-cat," probably through its being 

 confounded with that animal. 



The favourite haunts of the fitch are not necessarily in 

 the neighbourhood where it makes its breeding place, being 

 for preference, we fancy, at some distance off. The stoat and 

 weasel are accustomed to some extent to live in batches of 

 five or six, but the fitches prefer a more solitary existence, 

 and rarely live more than two or three together, and at a 

 fairly wide distance from others of their kind. Small dark 

 fir woods with a rough but dry surface of ground are, we 

 should say, the most favoured spots, and, moreover, those 

 particular ones which occur so frequently at sharp corners of 

 fields, and along entrance drives, such, in fact, as wood 

 pigeons love to roost in. After these woods, if we may so 

 term them, rough and broken ground, well diversified 

 with large boulders, interspersed with clumps of thick, low, 

 bristling covert, overgrown with brambles and briars, situated 

 for preference along the side of a stream or river, form the 

 places of habitation most agreeable to the polecat. Again, 

 large expanses of oak copse situate on a rough stony hill side 

 prove acceptable, and, to sum up, in fact, any ground well and 

 closely wooded or covered with brake is the situation the 

 vermin we discuss finds most conducive to its comfort and 

 enjoyment. In these places the polecat makes its haunts, and 



