THE PINE MARTEN. 107 



settled. After the most patient and attentive consideration 

 which we have been enabled to bestow upon the subject, aided 

 by the consultation of the best printed authorities, and the 

 examination of numerous specimens, we have been unable to 

 arrive at any satisfactory conclusion. On the one side we have 

 the weight of great names in zoology, as well as the common 

 consent of popular tradition, for regarding them as three distinct 

 species 5 and this opinion is in some degree confirmed by the 

 apparent permanence of certain characters, trifling in themselves, 

 but which have been regarded as sufficiently important to establish 

 a real distinction between them : on the other side we have 

 authorities equally great for considering two at least out of the 

 three as mere varieties of one common species -, while the facts 

 that have been observed tend to throw considerable doubt on 

 the permanence of the distinctive marks, and to render it pro- 

 bable that these may be nothing more than the effects of climate, 

 of seasons, of sex, and of age."* 



The most conspicuous differences between the pine marten and 

 the beech marten are those of colour ; but as these seem " in 

 some cases at least to be associated with certain slight diversities 

 in size and proportion, and as the habits of the two animals also 

 offer a trifling variation, there appears to be some, though far 

 from satisfactory, ground for considering them as specifically 

 distinct. "f 



In the voluminous work of Buffon and Daubenton, the latter 

 who supplied most of the descriptive and all the anatomical 

 details, seems to have hesitated whether to regard the pine 

 marten and beech marten as mere varieties or not ; and to have 

 been at last induced to consider them as distinct species, merely 

 by the fact that he had never met with a mixed or intermediate 

 breed. " They resemble one another so closely," he says, " in 

 external form and internal structure, that the sole distinction 

 between them consists in the colours of the fur. The pine marten 

 has the throat yellow, while that of the beech marten is white ; 



* Zoological Gardens Delineated (1831), vol. i. p. 230. 

 f Bell's History of British Quadrupeds (1837), p. 175. 



