382 Bibliographical Notices. 



Unlike many who undertake to deliver public lectures in the 

 present day to their less enlightened brethren, nothing has been 

 " got up " by Mr. Colquhoun for the occasion. There has been no 

 " cramming " or petty larceny from the labours of others ; all is 

 fresh and original, the result of long personal experience. Few 

 indeed of the present, and still fewer of the rising generation, can 

 venture to hope for such opportunities as have fallen to the lot of 

 this veteran observer. Even in Scotland the nobler predatory 

 quadrupeds are rapidly diminishing in number, while in England 

 they have, with the exception of the fox, aU but disappeared, the 

 exclusive preservation of Reynard as an object of sport having per- 

 petuated the species ; but even in the Scottish Highlands, where no 

 such immunity from persecution exists, Mr. Colquhoun considers 

 that he wUl be " the last to disappear," as " from his swiftness and 

 strength he can gather subsistence scattered over an immense tract 

 of country, and when food fails on the higher grounds can make a 

 raid on the lowlands during the long wintry nights, returning again 

 to shelter with his booty ere the day dawns. Next, the great 

 increase of alpine hares on the mountains and gradual bat steady 

 introduction of rabbits into many remote ranges, afford the hill-fox 

 a favourite meal with but little trouble in securing it. Lastly, of 

 all beasts of prey sly Reynard is the most difficult to trap." 



On the other hand the marten {Maries foina) and the wild cat 

 (Felis catus) are easily deceived with a bait. " Indeed both are so 

 greedy aiid fearless as to rush into the snare for a piece of raw 

 meat. Neither have speed to hold out before a swift plucky terrier, 

 but are quickly ' treed ' or run to ground. Should they take refuge 

 in a hole or cleft of the rock, they arc not difficult to bolt by smoke ; 

 but if they prove stubborn a neatly set trap wUl most likely secure 

 them after nightfall. No wonder, then, that these interesting c«rmvora 

 have vanished from the greater part of even the Scottish hill-districts, 

 and that a tourist may now explore two thirds of the Highlands, 

 and far from seeing either of them wiU find from the natives that 

 there are none to be seen ! " 



Our author shares the popular belief that the dark ferrets, so 

 common in every ratcatcher's hutch, owe their dusky hue to polecat 

 parentage. He says, " dark ferrets exactly resemble foumarts, 

 only they are smaller and of lighter shade. Many of these brown 

 ferrets are half polecats ; in fact the polecat is just a wild ferret." 



Most of our high zoological authorities are of a diiferent opinion. 

 Bell considers the ferret (Mmtela furo) specifically distinct from 

 the polecat (Mustela putorlus), and says that " of the assertion that 

 the breeders of ferrets have recourse to the polecat to improve the 

 breed he could obtain no authentic verification " *. Surely this 

 qucestio vexata might easily be decided by experiment. 



In reference to the food of the foumart, Mr. Colquhoun i-ecords 

 that he found on one occasion, under the last massive boulder of a 

 huge heap of stones, a female polecat with three young ones and 



* 'British Quadrupeds.' 



