1320 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXI. 



the smaller has 28. It is of interest therefore to record that in April last in 

 the Mahi Kantha Agency I shot a female panther measuring 6 feet 2 inches 

 (including tail of 2 feet 7 inchesj the number of whoee caudal vertebree on 

 careful examination proved to be 24. As a single instance is insufficient 

 to dissipate what I believe to be a myth, it may be hoped that others will 

 be reported bj'^ members of the Society. 



A. H. MOSSE, Captain, i.a. 

 Paianpur, 



'2^rd July 1912. 



No. IV.— NOTES ON MARTENS IN KASHMIR. 



Toiling up a moraine one afternoon with a friend at Sonemurg and when 

 at an elevation of about 11,000' he suddenly gave a low whistle from behind 

 me and beckoned me to his side. There not five yards from us appearing 

 from beneath a rock was a fine example of The Beech Marten {Martes foina). 

 The animal did not appear much disquieted by our presence, continuing to 

 sniff and gaze around, till one of us made a slight movement when it with- 

 drew beneath the rocks. We waited some time for its reappearance but it 

 evidently decided to stay at home, or had slipped away by a hidden passage 

 beneath the moraine. 



Imagining that we had found the entrance to its lair my friend a few 

 days later set up a camera and waited on the chance of securing a photo, 

 but there was no further sign of the Marten, only a few mouse hares 

 appeared from beneath the same rocks and played about. Later on I went 

 up to try my luck with a gun and to endeavour to secure the Marten as a 

 specimen. But I waited in vain and had to contend myself with a mouse 

 hare which came out at the same spot as the marten had. The presence of 

 these mouse hares rather upset the theory that we had discovered the 

 Marten's lair, and we came to the conclusion that, when we saw the latter, 

 it was hunting, and had been prospecting the mouse hare burrows under the 

 rocks from beneath which we saw it emerge. It is hardly likely that a 

 Beech Marten and mouse hares would live amicably side by side. The 

 biblical " Lion and lamb " miracle would be quite eclipsed by such a state 

 of affairs. 



In the same locality, the Indian Marten (M. Jlavigula) frequented the 

 forests just below. 



H. A. F. MAGRATH, Lieut.-Coxonel. 



Kashmir, Jw/y 1912. 



