MARTENS, POLECATS, AND WEASELS. 1 09 



indeed of all our native Irish Mammals. I had at first contem- 

 plated the publication of a list of localities in Ireland where 

 the Marten has been found of late years, but an accumulation 

 of notes has convinced me that this animal is much more 

 common in the wooded parts of Ireland than is generally 

 supposed, and consequently that such an article would be 

 almost as unnecessary as one on the distribution in Ireland of 

 such common Irish Mammals as the Otter or Badger. I think 

 the statement that ' at one time, in all probability, the Marten 

 must have been generally distributed in Ireland, but as civilisa- 

 tion has extended inland from the east and south, and as 

 woods have been cut down, and the country opened up by 

 railways, drainage, and cultivation, so has this animal been 

 gradually driven into the wilder portions of the north and west,' 

 needs considerable modification. No doubt the Marten is now 

 being driven out from the east and south, but it is only of late 

 that this has been the case, and I contend that even in the 

 more highly-cultivated parts of the eastern counties of Ireland 

 it would be an impossibility to name a county in which the 

 animal has not occurred recently. Taking the eastern counties 

 from north to south, Mr. Harting's own notes establish its 

 occurrence more than once in Antrim in 1893, while in Down 

 (again quoting from the same article), * amidst the wild and 

 broken ground of the Mourne Mountains, . . . the Marten 

 will probably for some time yet to come defy the efforts of its 

 would-be exterminators.' From Louth and Meath I have no 

 records by me, but there is little doubt that stragglers are still 

 occasionally found in those counties, since they lie quite close 

 to more favoured counties. From the small county of Dublin 

 there is no recent record, but the outer parts of the county are 

 not so far from the woods of Wicklow, which are still one of 

 the strongholds of the Marten ; and even in Wexford, ' the 

 model county ' of Ireland, its occurrence has beeo noted as 



