218 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



Liverpool taxidermist, for preservation, by Sir Thomas Stanley. 

 The late J. F. Robinson recollected, as a boy, seeing one which 

 was trapped in the Royalties, near Frodsham ; and saw another 

 treed by the foxhounds at Eddisbury Hill, in Delamere Forest 

 ('Manchester City News,' Feb. 9th, 1884, quoted in Zool. 1891, 

 p. 452). Mr. R. Newstead (in lit.) states that a Marten was 

 killed in 1876 in some farm -buildings at Hassal, near Sandbach, 

 but was not preserved. He has been informed, On what he con- 

 siders to be trustworthy evidence, that another was seen in the 

 spring of 1882, on a farm at Thornton-le-Moors. Our latest and 

 most interesting record is in Mr. Newstead's list, and refers to a 

 Marten which was shot in the pheasant-field at Eaton Park on 

 July 7th, 1891, and is now in the Grosvenor Museum, Chester. 



Mustela putorius, L. ; Polecat ; Foumart ; Fitchet. — 

 Though the Weasel and Stoat still hold their ground, in spite of 

 incessant persecution, the Polecat is practically extinct in 

 Cheshire. To the present generation of gamekeepers and farmers 

 the animal is almost unknown, and the older men remember it 

 only as having occurred in their youth. The Rev. C. Wolley- 

 Dod, of Edge Hall, Malpas, states (in lit.) that during a twenty- 

 five years' residence in the county he has never heard of a Pole- 

 cat. Colonel Dixon, writing from Astle Hall, Chelford, says he 

 has heard of none during recent years. Captain W. Congreve, 

 of Burton Hall (Wirral), states (in lit.), "Some fifty years ago we 

 often caught Fitchets in steel-traps, but none exist here now." 

 Byerley speaks of the Polecat as " occasionally found in Wirral ; 

 formerly common." Mr. Newstead's list contains no Cheshire 

 records. In the * Manchester City News ' for June LOth and 1 7th, 

 1882, the late J. F. Robinson gave an account of a hunt in 

 Delamere Forest, in which he took part, about twenty years 

 before that date ; but the Polecat appears to be quite extinct in 

 that district now. Mr. H. H. Corbett, of Doncaster, states 

 (in lit.) that he saw a Polecat in a " keeper's museum " at Bram- 

 hall some time between 1866 and 1870, and that he found a half- 

 grown example in a trap at the same place about the same time. 

 Mr. H. P. Greg, of Handforth, writes, under date May 24th, 

 1894 : — " Our old keeper, Brown (who died ten or twelve years 

 ago), killed a Polecat within half a mile of this house, in the 

 Ringway direction, thirteen or fourteen years ago ; and our 

 present keeper, Joshua Pearson, killed one just on the Mobberley 



