258 Practical Game Preserving. 



carried on in the early morning, and much in the manner 

 of the stoat The particular expanse of wood in which the 

 vermin has its lair will generally be nearly, if not quite, 

 forsaken by those birds, &c., which may be liable to an 

 attack, and it accordingly has to seek out other places and 

 wooded ground in which to find its food. The marteron is 

 not wholly confined to birds, animals, and eggs for its food, 

 but is to a certain extent herbivorous, eating, seemingly 

 with equal relish, hazel and beech nuts, which it extracts 

 from their shells while they are still attached to the tree. 

 Beech nuts are of course more to its liking, and are accord- 

 ingly far more generally the food of this kind which it con- 

 sumes. 



When the marteron determines to construct a nest for 

 itself, it generally selects some hollow tree, if possible, a 

 beech ; but as holes in these are mostly scarce, it is often 

 obliged to adopt some other than its favourite tree. Ash 

 and oak will be the most likely ones. If the former, the 

 deserted nest of a woodpecker will probably be selected, 

 as being easily made warm enough to shelter the young ones 

 by means of moss, dry leaves, and the like. If, however, 

 a hollow tree is discovered, the nest will be more carefully 

 formed of various herbage, straw, and dry grass. At other 

 times, when no tree hollow is discoverable, then some dry 

 warm crevice in a rock, or the cavity formed between 

 roughly piled stones, will provide a favourable site. The 

 beech marten is considerably more prolific than the pine 

 marten, producing, as it does, always five or six young at 

 a birth, and having occasionally two litters in a year. This 

 should certainly tell as an argument against classing the two 



