THE POLECAT AND THE MARTEN 



m 



be compared with the voice of a young 

 kid. 



I have ah-eady stated that the distri- 

 bution of the Marten in Great Britain 

 seems to have altered httle since Bingley's 

 time. So far as Ireland is concerned, it 

 is cheering to read the following note 

 by ]\Iajor Barrett-Hamilton : " Xo doubt 

 the Marten is noic driven out from tlie 

 east and south, but it 

 is only of late years 

 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."* 

 As r e g a rd s Great 

 Britain, however, all 

 recent records seem to 

 come from such 

 sparsely inhabited and 

 mountainous districts 

 as the Scotch deer- 

 forest area, the wilder 

 portions of Wales, and 

 the Cumberland Fells. 

 For the following notes 

 on a recent occurrence 

 of a family of Martens 

 in the latter locality I am greatly in- 

 debted to the Rev. A. Bertram Hutton, 

 who has also kindly allowed me to 

 reproduce his interesting photograph of 

 a Marten's breeding quarters. 



It appears that in May, 1905, in the 

 Tilberthwaite district, a quarryman named 

 Kendall climbed up from the valley, 

 accompanied by his two lurchers, and 

 came to a large pinnacle of rock, on a 

 ledge of which he could see an old 

 buzzard's nest shadowed by a holly-tree 

 which grew from a cleft below it. The 

 dogs showed excitement, and Kendall, 

 who was apparently well acquainted with 

 Martens and recognised traces of them, 

 succeeded in getting the smaller lurcher 

 up to the nest. He himself was, unfor- 

 tunately, too late to save the lives of 

 three \larten cubs, all of which the 

 dog injured fatally. On the following 



* Proccediui^s of the Royal Irish Acadfiiiy, 1894. 



day, a Saturday, Kendall left work at 

 noon, and took his dogs to the buz- 

 zard's nest once more. This time he 

 put up the female Marten, antl there 

 ensued a chase which lasted until night- 

 fall, and which ended in the capture 

 of the Marten alive and uninjured. 

 A glimpse of the prime\'al, this : the 

 huntsman alone and afoot ; the pack 



THE THREE 



DEAD MARTEN CUBS TAKEN FROM THE 

 NEST SHOWN ON p. 396. 



two lurcher dogs ; the quarry worth the 

 hunting. 



The Marten ran uphill. Twice she 

 took cover in " burrens " (collections of 

 split-off boulders), and once she doubled. 

 At the commencement of the run she 

 entered a larch wood with the dogs close 

 behind her, but she appears to have 

 preferred to trust to her own speed and 

 her knowledge of the rocks rather than 

 to risk being treed. She easily out- 

 distanced the dogs, who, however, man- 

 aged to hunt her by scent and to hold 

 her when she took cover. The first time 

 that this occurred she broke away while 

 Kendall was dislodging the boulders. 

 Finally she went to earth in a shallow 

 burrow (probably a fo.x's) beneath another 

 rock pile, and here Kendall, after an hour's 

 hard work, managed to secure her. using 

 badger screw-tongs and a sack for the 

 purpose. (Screw-tongs were recentl\- the 



