18 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



Heron would have failed to see me. Perhaps these Welsh birds 

 are unsophisticated. I saw one more. 



Columba palumbus. — Fairly common. 



C. oenas. — Seen about the rocks, high up. 



Crex pratensis. — One heard in the lower valley. 



Totanus hypoleucus.— Several pairs. Very tame. They had 

 probably hatched their young. I had seen tiny young following 

 the old birds on the banks of the Wye in Brecon just before. 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



MAMMALIA. 



Wild Cat, Polecat, and Marten in Cardiganshire.— In November, 

 1893, a large cat was sent to Mr. Hutchings, of Aberystwith, to be preserved. 

 It was shot upon the estate of Mr. T. M. Davies, of Pen-y-bont-pren, Taly- 

 bont, and is now in his possession. I examined it in the full expectation of 

 finding it to be a house-cat which had taken to the woods, or the descendant 

 of one; but after careful comparison with books of reference, now I believe 

 it to be a genuine example of Felis catus, as it appears to me to possess all 

 the characteristics of that animal. It has the heavy, muscular figure, short 

 limbs, and broad flat head of the wild species. Length, as stuffed, 30 in., 

 of which the tail is only 8£ in. It is grey in colour, whitish beneath, with 

 an irregular dark line, or perhaps two, extending along the back, and with 

 regular transverse bands of black on the sides ; yellowish about the face, 

 tawny on the inner side of the legs, and feet black underneath. The tail 

 is bushy and does not taper, ringed, and tipped with black. The keeper 

 who shot it sent it to be preserved, as being quite unlike any cat that he 

 had ever killed previously. I do not know the present status of the Wild 

 Cat in Wales, and can only hope that the example referred to may be seen 

 by some one better acquainted with that species than I am. But it is only 

 comparatively recently that game-preserving has become at all general in 

 the di.-trict in question, and it is not at all impossible that an animal, 

 even of this size, might remain undetected. The Polecat, Mustela patorius, 

 is still so frequently met with that its remains are to be seen upon every 

 keeper's wall, and those sent into Aberystwith to be preserved would 

 probably average one a week throughout the year. The Marten, Martes 

 sylvatica, on the other hand, is all but extirpated. The only recent 

 occurrence that I know is that of one in the possession of Capt. Geo. Weir 

 Cosens, of Llanbadarn, which was sent to him about 1882, from a grouse- 



