THE BRITISH MAMMALS : THEIR GENERA AND SPECIES. 55 



Colour livery brown, throat dark 



Mustela. Plate v. CARNIVORA. 



23. martes, PINE MARTEN. 



buff, chest whitish. 



There is a pleasant intelligent look about the Marten which has 

 gained him many friends at first sight. With a good head, good 

 eyes, well-proportioned ears and clean-cut muzzle, he is certainly the 

 nicest-looking of his family. His broad, rounded ears are furred on 

 both sides, his tail is bushy, and his colour a distinctive brown un- 

 like that of any other British animal, the stone-grey under-fur not 

 showing through the upper coat as in the polecat. The skull is rather 

 long. There are thirty-eight teeth, three incisors, one canine, and four 

 premolars in each jaw, and one molar in the upper set and two in the 

 lower, so that there is a molar more in both jaws than in the dogs and 

 one lower molar more than in the cats. The lower incisors are smaller 

 than the upper, the canines are long and sharp, and the carnassials, 



PINE MARTEN. 

 (Mustela martes.) 



sectorials, or flesh-teeth, whichever one may choose to call them, 

 are, as usual, the fourth upper premolar and the lower first molar, 

 the latter of which has a bilobed blade, a small inner cusp, and a 

 heel about a third as long as the length of the tooth. The nose 

 projects a little beyond the lips ; the tongue is smooth ; the body is 

 long and supple; the limbs are short, the feet rounded, their soles- 

 furred ; and there are five toes on each foot, the claws being semi- 

 retractile. The Marten lives in the woods and hunts in the trees, 

 leaping from bough to bough like a squirrel ; in rocky country it 

 may be found in the open in pursuit of rabbits, and then it shelters 

 in some hole in a crag, but as a rule its home is in a hollow trunk, 

 or in a magpie's nest, or squirrel's drey. There are about half a 

 dozen young at a time and two litters in a year. The female 

 resembles the male; the tail is a foot or thereabouts in length, the 

 head and body being half as long again. The Marten is said, some- 

 what doubtfully, to exist in Epping Forest and other woodlands in 

 the south, and is certainly met with here and there throughout 

 Britain and Ireland, oftenest in the Lake district, but is yearly 



