MAMMALS 



The mammalian fauna of Cornwall is very representative, but contains 

 no species of limited distribution or of unexpected occurrence except the grey 

 seal. The scarcity of woods over the greater part of the country has no 

 doubt had some influence on the occurrence and distribution of the terrestrial 

 mammals, but the larger carnivora the badger, the fox, and the polecat 

 have their stronghold not so much in the interior as in the rough broken 

 cliff-land of the coast. The smaller land species have unfortunately 

 received very little attention, and the bats have apparently been ignored by 

 local observers for more than forty years. The country distribution of the 

 bats in particular is very imperfectly known, and the list of county species 

 may not yet be complete. The geographical position of Cornwall and the 

 long extent of seaboard suggest great possibilities as regards marine forms, 

 but in the past the identification of the Cetacea has too often been a matter 

 of assumption than the result of competent examination. 



The most noteworthy features of Cornish mammalian life on land are the 

 abundance of the badger and the otter, and the persistence of the polecat. 

 The badger is distributed throughout the entire county and is locally very 

 plentiful both inland and near the sea. In several places in the cliff on 

 the north coast the badger and the fox have made earths together and appear 

 to live in perfect harmony. In the almost impenetrable oak scrub between 

 Millook and Dizzard Head the mixed population is relatively dense, though 

 the foxes, of course, are greatly in the minority. The otter is almost 

 ubiquitous, and the paths made by its traffic are often very much in evidence. 

 Lately it has been more than usually conspicuous in the upper reaches of the 

 streams from Bodmin Moors, where they pass over the edge of the plateau 

 and tumble down over a rocky bed to the lowland beneath. The polecat is 

 perilously near extinction, but still breeds on rough, lonely cliff-land on the 

 north and probably in one or two places on the south coast as well. In 

 spite of the efforts of gamekeepers the stoat and weasel are still plentiful. The 

 smaller rodents, too, are abundant, and even the bank vole may prove to be 

 fairly common when better known. 



Whales, dolphins, grampuses, and porpoises are all fairly well known 

 visitors to the Cornish seas, but the chief interest in the marine mammalia 

 appears to centre round the seals of the Bristol Channel and the Land's End 

 and the grey seals that are almost always so conspicuous among the western 

 islands of the Scillonian archipelago. 



Jonathan Couch in his Cornish Fauna and elsewhere, Dr. W. P. Cocks 

 in his often-quoted Fauna of Falmouth (1849), anc ^ Dr. W. K. Bullmore in 

 his lengthy article on the Cornish Vertebrate Fauna in the Report of the 

 Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society (1861), laid an excellent foundation to 



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