162 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



Welsh localities in which the Marten has been met with, and 

 although I do not suppose that they represent anything like a 

 complete indication of its present haunts, an examination of 

 these may pave the way perhaps for further particulars, should 

 these lines meet the eyes of readers who are in a position to give 

 fuller information on the subject. 



As regards North Wales, Mr. P. L. Sclater, writing in this 

 journal so far back as 1845, reported (p. 1018) that in the 

 summer of the previous year, while staying at Llanberis he saw 

 a Marten killed by a pack of hounds which were kept for the 

 purpose of killing foxes, wild cats, and other vermin. The 

 Welsh huntsmen who followed this pack on foot, with iron-spiked 

 poles, assured him this animal was then common there, amongst 

 the rocks, and was destructive to lambs. The pack of hounds 

 referred to has long since ceased to exist. About the end of 1879 

 three were killed in the neighbourhood of Bethgelert, and were 

 preserved for the landlord of ' The Goat' Inn, where they were 

 seen two years afterwards by Mr. Cecil Smith (Zool. 1881, p. 419). 

 Since that time others have been reported in the neighbourhood 

 of Bethgelert, and two were trapped in February, 1890, on 

 Lord Penrhyn's moors, by Conway Lake. Donovan, in his 

 * Natural History of British Quadrupeds,' has referred to the 

 former existence of the Marten in Carnarvonshire and Merio- 

 nethshire. 



About 1867 a Marten was killed by the late Mr. Gwynne 

 Vaughan's hounds near Llanwrtyd, in Brecknock. The skin is 

 still in the possession of Mr. E. C. Phillips, of Brecon, who is 

 aware of the existence of four stuffed specimens obtained in this 

 county since 1857, and who reported (Zool. 1887, p. 190) that one 

 of these animals was seen in a wood near Brecon in September, 

 1886. Writing to us recently on the subject, he says : — " The 

 Marten was formerly common in Brecknockshire, but is now, I fear, 

 almost extinct ; although it is possible that a few still survive in 

 some of the large woods and deep dingles. A lady who is well 

 known as a naturalist, and whose father kept hounds in the 

 extreme north of this county many years ago, tells me that 

 they often found and killed a Marten both in Brecknockshire and 

 Radnorshire, and she once remembers seeing two bolted from 

 one hole ; they were soon run into and easily killed. The large 

 woods of Llangoed, Breconshire, were formerly a noted place for 



