THE BRITISH MARTEN. 133 



too well known to require further comment. Nevertheless, with 

 the universal practice of trapping here very fully developed), 

 and the close attention paid to all so-called ' vermin ' by the 

 game-preserver, it must be a matter of extreme difficulty for any 

 foot-footed animal to escape detection, and there can be no doubt 

 that even in the wildest parts of the county the poor Marten is 

 on the verge of extermination, if indeed it has not already been 

 eradicated. The almost simultaneous occurrence of two indi- 

 viduals in a country where they had become practically un- 

 known is very curious. The North Shields example was trapped 

 on 23rd May, and that at Harehope just five days later. As 

 already mentioned, the latter was a male, and it would be in- 

 teresting to know if any record was kept of the sex of the other. 



" In the mansion of Eglingham Hall, so long the seat of the 

 Ogle family, and which adjoins Harehope, there is an ancient 

 specimen of the Marten, preserved along with a Polecat, and 

 some other ferae natures now extinct, or become very rare, in the 

 district. This was doubtless killed in the vicinity at a time 

 when these animals were still denizens of the neighbouring 

 woods, but wherever a stuffed specimen now exists in the county 

 it is looked upon as a ' rare beast ' ; though so comparatively 

 short a time ago, as in 1863, Messrs. Mennell and Perkins, in 

 their ' Catalogue of the Mammalia of Northumberland and 

 Durham,' quoted by Mr. Harting, were able to write of this 

 species, * Although it cannot be called common, it is widely 

 distributed over both counties.' 



"In the ' Proceedings of the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club ' 

 (vol. vii. p. 505), the late Mr. Andrew Brotherston, of Kelso, 

 recorded that on the 6th July, 1871, he and a friend saw an 

 animal, upon the English side of the Cheviot Hills, which they 

 'were almost certain was a Marten.' It came from amongst the 

 masses of loose stones below the cliff in the Bizzle (a rocky gorge 

 running almost to the summit of the highest peak of the Cheviots), 

 and made off across the hill ; and there is no reason to suppose 

 that so good an observer as Mr. Brotherston was likely to be 

 mistaken in his surmise as to its identity. Another 'strange 

 animal,' which was reported to me as having been seen near 

 Twizell House, the residence of the late Mr. P. J. Selby, in 1884, 

 it seems not improbable may have been of this species ; but 

 I have no other note of any recent occurrence in Northumberland, 



