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NOTES AND QUERIES. 



MAMMALIA. 



CARNIVORA. 



Pine Marten in Ireland. — It will perhaps be of interest to your corre- 

 spondent, Mr. W. W. Flemyng (p. 141), and to other Irish naturalists, to 

 learn that I have live living adult Pine Martens from Ireland. The species 

 is decidedly less rare there than in the three other divisions of the British 

 Isles, but Irish naturalists and the Martens at large will thank me not to 

 indicate the precise localities whence my specimens come. One of them 

 I obtained so recently as the end of February, and in the early morning of 

 the last day of March she gave birth to a litter of young, apparently two in 

 number. Young Martens are, as I discovered in 1882,* pure white at 

 birth, beginning to get grizzled within a week, and becoming brown within 

 four weeks ; but in the present instance, with a freshly-caught mother, 

 inspection was quite out of the question. Assuming, from the date of her 

 capture, that she might be in young, I prepared a suitable cage for her; but 

 not anticipating the increase would take place so early had not shifted her 

 from the small cage in which I had originally placed her. It was impossible 

 then to move her, and hopeless to expect her not to eat the cubs in a small 

 cage containing merely a little bed-box ; so I prepared a large box, and 

 adjusted it without noise, so as to fit against one of the narrow openings 

 through which the cage is cleaned, as we could not, of course, block the 

 only door. This opening is little more than two inches high, but she very 

 soon moved the cubs through it into the more spacious and secluded bed- 

 room. Since the first two days, however, I have been unable to certainly 

 distinguish more than a single voice, so it is not unlikely that one cub has 

 come to grief. 



Those who are acquainted with Martens (and those only) will appreciate 

 their gnawing powers ; and during the night of Easter Tuesday (April 

 20th-21st) this Marten ripped out a strip from the front edge of the flooring 

 of the bed-box, the width of which was only 1£ in- at the widest point, 



* See ' Zoologist,' 1883, p. 203. The same pair of Martens bred again 

 in 1884 and 1885, and both eventually died well on in their seventeenth year 

 (at least). 



