PINE MARTEN IN EAST YORKSHIRE. 



W. H. ST. QUINTIN, M.B.O.U., F.Z.S. 



I WISH to record another of the strange sporadic occurrences of 

 the Pine Marten, far from its nearest recognized habitat. 

 About the middle of last May, George Allison, Mrs. Wickham 

 Boynton's keeper at Barmston, six miles south of Bridlington, 

 noticed the ' work ' of some animal with which he was not 

 familiar. Young rabbits were found killed, and their remains 

 suggested a prowling cat. But seven or eight hares and 

 leverets were found dead with peculiar injuries — a wound 

 had been opened, in each case, behind the shoulder, from 

 which the blood had been sucked. My friend, the Rev. 

 Edmondes Owen, a well-known Welsh naturalist, says that, 

 when sometimes a young lamb is found with such a wound, it 

 is recognised at once as the work of a ' Boda ' (Marten). 

 Traps were set, as for a cat, but with no result. In the end 

 the animal was caught in a tunnel dug through a bank, in 

 which a trap had been inserted, unbaited. On the ist June, 

 the Marten was found caught by a fore-leg, and dead. It 

 was reported to me ; but it had been sent off at once to the 

 stuffer, and has only lately been returned. It is a male, and, 

 from its teeth, apparently a young one, though full-grown. 

 Its length, in the flesh, was given me as 32 inches. Mr. J. 

 G. Millais, in his fine work, 'The Mammals of Great Britain 

 and Ireland' (1905), gives the measurements of various 

 British and Irish Martens, one of which, a Scotch one, and a 

 male, also measured 32 inches in extreme length, the tail 

 being 12 inches, with a weight of 3 lb. 2 ozs. (The largest 

 specimen mentioned by Mr. Millais measured 35 inches.) 



Unfortunately, as one would expect in the summer season, 

 the animal was ' coating ' badly, the forearms and thighs 

 being covered with short, very dark brown, new hair ; while 

 much of the old pelt remains on the back and rump. The 

 «ars are thinly covered, and the brush very shabby. The 

 breast spot is decidedly white, but this is, no doubt, due to 

 the fading of the old hair. (The Beech Marten (M. foina), 

 in which the throat and chest are pure white, is not a member 

 of the British Fauna.) 



Mr. Millais mentions a Marten which was trapped in 

 February, 1900, at Swainby-in-Cleveland. I have no note 

 of any more recent record for Yorkshire. 



Can it be that the Cleveland occurrence indicates the 

 route by which the animal under notice may have reached 

 the East Riding? If it wandered down Teesdale, from 

 Westmorland, to Cleveland, and thence through the moors by 

 Newton Dale, it might not have had much more than some 

 twenty miles to complete its journey to Barmston, and that 



1921 Jan. 1 



