THE PINE -MARTEN. 159 



least lovable of all our fur-clad fauna in the most 

 lovely form. The beauty of the marten is in its 

 quickness, its restlessness, its darting, animated 

 poses in its very life. Take that life away, and 

 there is left but a piece of carrion, no more beauti- 

 ful than a paper rose. A dead marten is an object 

 from which we shrink, knowing it to have been a 

 bloodthirsty and cruel thing; but to have seen a 

 living marten in the trees is to go your way the 

 richer and happier for the view, for you have seen 

 Life Life radiantly materialised, the most living 

 and lively of all God's moving things. 



Is the marten to go ? That is what we have to 

 decide, and to decide to-day. To most lovers of 

 the great outdoors the interest of a landscape is 

 decided to some extent by the wild life that dwells 

 therein. One looks over miles of rolling forest 

 conscious not only of its beauty, but of a sense 

 of charm and romance because one can say, ' Herein 

 still dwell the wolf and a thousand other unlovely 

 things God gave when the world was untarnished 

 by man's hand.' One can wander for days in the 

 wild woods of the Highlands, through the lovely 

 glens and corries, gray and cloud-wreathed, end- 

 lessly happy in the thought, 'Here the wild deer 

 and the marten have their home.' On the Conti- 

 nent one may view panoramas just as lovely, just 

 as wild, but holding no lasting charm because 

 therein is no wild creature in whose existence lies 

 the true romance of the Wild. 



Outside its beauty the marten has perhaps but 

 one feature to plead its case its rarity. One 

 would plead for the protection of the hated wolf of 

 the northern wilds if it had become so rare as no 

 longer to exist as a source of danger to man and 

 his interests ; yet the wolf is not beautiful. We 



