198 The Naturalist in Siluria. 



Only six years ago a poacher of my acquaintance killed a 

 beech, or, as sometimes called, "stone," marten within 

 less than a mile from my house. He found it while 

 " rabbiting," his ferrets having run it out of a hole in a 

 hedge-bank, and far away from woods. No doubt it had 

 made an excursion thither on the same business as th<j 

 poacher himself. 



But in many of the fastnesses around the Forest of 

 Dean I know that martens, if not plentiful, are yet in 

 goodly numbers. One of the Forest keepers tells me 

 that, five or six years ago, he used to see many, and 

 shoot many, too, in the High Meadow Woods a tract of 

 the forest which overhangs the river Wye ; and there is 

 the skin of one stuffed and mounted in the house of a 

 farmer in that neighbourhood, which very recently fell to 

 a gamekeeper's gun. Again, a gipsy of my cognizance^ 

 who tents in all parts of the Forest, tells me that he and 

 his tribe often meet with " marten- cats," which he affirms 

 to be far from uncommon in the woods near Blakeney 

 and Lydney, where there is some rather heavy timber. 

 He says they vary much in colour and markings a re- 

 markable fact, if fact it be. But he has promised to 

 institute a search, and procure (f samples " for me, if 

 possible. So I await the result of this Bohemian's " cat- 

 chasing " with a very vivid interest. 



