SEPTEMBER 235 



contain fragments of the old woodland or tracts of 

 modern plantation, afford harbour for ' vermin ' which, 

 in a deer forest, it is nobody's interest to destroy. Small 

 game, such as grouse and hares, are not encouraged on 

 stalking ground, neither is it desirable to disturb such 

 ground by the operations of trapping. Hence, both the 

 true wild cat and the marten are actually increasing 

 in Knoydart, which abounds in steep, shaggy hillsides, 

 clothed for miles with indigenous birch, alder, and a 

 few pines. It is only accidentally that a marten 

 occasionally gets into a trap set for rabbits or others ; no 

 man knows how many there may be, for instance, in that 

 wild thicket, the Bachd-an-vich-tosaich (wood of the 

 chiefs son), which runs to the height of over a thousand 

 feet on the pass between Loch Hourn and Loch Nevis. 

 Last winter only one chanced to fall a victim, for the 

 stalker told me he was at pains to avoid killing martens, 

 and the beautiful fur of this one suggested wonder that 

 no Highland proprietor has adopted the suggestion for 

 a fur farm, which was thrown out a couple of years 

 ago by a writer hi the Spectator. The prodigious price 

 given in open market for marten skins ought to ensure 

 a profitable return on the outlay of fencing and tending 

 the animals, which require no more elaborate diet than 

 their cousin the ferret. Polecats or foumarts appear to 

 have become really extinct in this region, though they 

 still linger in others less wild and remote ; but as the 

 polecat is identical with the domestic ferret, no difficulty 

 need be experienced in restoring the species if desired. 

 The albino variety of polecat is usually preferred as a 



