OCCASIONAL NOTES. 251 
of these was not much longer than a good-sized Squirrel, but the other was 
more bulky and evidently older. This happened several years ago, and 
I did not take either the length or weight of the juveniles, but their occur- 
rence at that season of the year is in favour of Mr. Southwell’s conclusions 
as to the time of breeding. How long a time does it take the Otter to 
attain maturity ? About the middle of November last a young Badger was 
sent from the New Forest to my house in Hampshire, but unfortunately 
I was away, and consequently it was not preserved; it was about a foot in 
length, but my friends did not weigh it. A friend of mine in the forest 
asked me how long a Badger went with young, as he had kept a female a 
year or more, and then she had young, but died soon after. I confessed my 
ignorance of the matter, and told him I believed the period of gestation was 
almost if not quite unknown. Has the time been proved with certainty ? 
I quite believe, with Mr. Southwell, that the pairing of any animal in 
confinement is not of much value as an indication of what takes place 
in a state of nature, for we well know that domestication, or even semi- 
domestication, often has strange effects upon the creatures taken under 
man’s careful supervision.—G. B. Conny (Ringwood, Hants). 
BREEDING OF THE BapGER.—My Badger, which had her first family 
of one (a female) on February 27th, last year, presented me with another 
family on the evening of February 16th, this year. Naturalists will there- 
fore be glad to learn that I can now settle that vexed question, the gestation 
of these curious animals, for this Badger has gone with young a year all 
but about seventeen days. JI cannot say how many there are, for the 
apartment is a long hollow tree, which I cannot see far into. It was seven 
weeks before the young one turned out last year, and then its mother was 
very anxious that it should not be seen, and soon carried it back in her 
mouth. The reason I think there are several is from the music they make, 
which is very like that made by Ferrets. I have known a wild Badger 
have five young ones. It has been ascertained in Germany that the Roe 
has the power of suspending the time of gestation, and this seems to be the 
only way of accounting for the fact of wild-caught Badgers going as long as 
fifteen months with young.—F. H. Satvin (Whitmoor House, Guildford). 
Marren-cat in Lincotnsutre.—I send the following account of a com- 
paratively recent capture of a Marten-cat in Lincolnshire, as there are not 
many of our English counties that can still reckon this animal with any 
certainty among its fauna. It occurred in a large wood of more than five 
hundred acres, called South Wood, belonging to Mr. Thomas Drake, of 
Stainfield Hall. A cousin of mine, Mr. F. F. Morres, was shooting with 
a party of two or three others during the Christmas vacation of 1871-72 in 
the above-named wood, which was still famed as the haunt of Martens, one 
or more being generally killed there every winter. The owner has numerous 
specimens preserved in various attitudes. The party had been shooting all 
