180 ,marten-cats. 



plenty of game is found, and by the end of October, 

 they can generally count from twenty to twenty-five 

 brace of noses on the door of the Brigstock kennel. 

 Owing to that growing evil, the preservation of 

 pheasants, many districts which were a few years since 

 full of foxes, and afforded excellent sport, both in cub 

 hunting and the spring, are now nearly deprived of 

 the presence of those animals. I, for my own part, am 

 a great admirer of spring hunting, and have frequently 

 seen as good sport and as hard running at this time of 

 the year as at any other. When hunting in large 

 woodlands twenty years since, it was not a very 

 uncommon occurrence to meet with a Marten Cat ; he 

 is a beautiful animal, and where they abound he may 

 be seen easily in a morning running about, and drying 

 himself along a piece of park-paling, or other wooden 

 fence, previous to his going into his place of retire- 

 ment, which is sometimes a hollow tree, and occasionally 

 the usurped nest of the magpie or carrion crow ; but 

 the murderous system of trapping, has nearly annihil- 

 ated, not only the Marten, but almost all other wild 

 animals and birds of prey. In those days the great 

 Glede, or Forked-tailed Kite, the Buzzard, and the 

 Raven might be both seen and heard continually, when 

 hunting in the neighbourhood of any large woodlands, 

 in the solitude of which their well-known forms and 

 notes made an interesting addition to the harmony of 

 the scene. But they have vanished, and that more 

 fashionable foreigner, the pheasant, has supplanted them. 

 The scent of the marten cat is remarkably sweet, and 

 eagerly pursued by almost every description of dog ; 

 our forefathers used to enter their fox-hounds to him, 



