842 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



MAMMALIA. 



The Polecat in Northamptonshire. — I am surprised to notice in your 

 interesting article in ' The Zoologist' (pp. 240 — 253) that you only allude 

 to one occurrence of the animal in our county, and therefore write to 

 inform you that between the years 1840 and 1850 it might be fairly called 

 "common" in this neighbourhood. Since the latter year I do not 

 remember to have heard of the finding of a litter hereabouts, but the beast 

 is still well known, and, " without book," I should say that for the last 

 forty years about three occurrences have come to my knowledge in every 

 four or five years on my own shootings and those of my own immediate 

 neighbours. I regret that I have no accurate record of all these occurrences, 

 but I have a very fine pair of Polecats stuffed that were killed near Lilford 

 between 1875 and 1880. I was informed on excellent authority that two 

 or more were seen near Tichmarsh in the early spring of 1882. A male 

 weighing two pounds was trapped on Mr. Hunt's property at Wadenhoe, 

 about two miles from this house, in the first week of March, 1890; 

 another seen close to Wadenhoe House a few days subsequently ; and a 

 third was trapped on Wigsthorpe, my own property, about the 18th of the 

 month just named. Mr. Matthews, the taxidermist, of Stamford, had a 

 stuffed Polecat in his shop on February 11th ult, which, as he told my 

 informant on that day, had been recently killed on the Northamptonshire 

 side of the Welland. In this connection, it may interest some of your 

 readers to know that, early in L858, I was Woodcock-shooting with a friend 

 from the garrison of Corfu, in the swampy woods near Butrinto, in Epirus, 

 when our dogs — three spaniels and an old retriever — suddenly began to 

 " mark" savagely at an old pollarded hollow ash-stump. On examining the 

 holes at the foot of this stump, which was not more three feet high, we 

 observed the tracks of some beast that I at first took to be those of a 

 Marten-cat (an animal which we frequently met with in the country above 

 mentioned); but on applying some lighted pages of H.M.'s Regulations to 

 the principal hole, we were very soon aware, by the odour that overcame 

 that of the smoke thus produced, that we had no " Sweet Mart" to deal with. 

 The rotten wood soon took fire, and in a few minutes a huge Polecat crept 

 out, and was speedily killed by one of the dogs. In the expectation of 

 another, we waited for some minutes without any result ; but on further 

 search found the ground within the circumference of the stump was entirely 

 strewn with the heads and fore-quarters of frogs, all neatly bitten off just 

 behind the shoulders. — Lilford (Lilford Hall, Oundle). 



The Polecat in Wales and Cumberland. — I have been much 

 interested in your article on the Polecat, and as I cannot see that you 

 mention Wales, I may tell you that it is, or was, from a keeper in Wales 



