THE DESTRUCTION OF WILD ANIMALS. 



Few things are more interesting than to work out and register 

 the vicissitudes experienced by the mammals of a faunal area. 

 Certain species seem to be almost proof against any amount of 



Mole. persecution. The Mole, for example, has defied centuries of 

 persecution at the hands of Lakeland agriculturists. The 

 Kev. A. Warren tells me that when he was instituted to the 

 living of Bondgate, Appleby, in 1880, the parochial mole- 

 catcher claimed as his perquisite a sum of seven shillings for 

 trapping Moles on the Glebe lands; alleging that his father 

 and his father before him, had constantly enjoyed the pre- 

 scriptive right of trapping Moles for the vicar of the parish. 

 Similarly, I find entries in the Martindale books of payments 

 for Mole-catching. In the accounts of this parish for 1854-55, 

 an entry stands : ' Mole sess. 2s. 0d.' The special fee of one 

 shilling has often been exacted for trapping some sacrilegious 

 Mole which had commenced to tunnel in a churchyard. Thus, 

 an entry stands in the payments of the Martindale church- 

 wardens for the year 1826-27, 'Paid for catching a Mole, Is.' 

 The Rev. T. Hodson, vicar of the adjoining parish of Barton, 

 assures me that on one or two recent occasions he has paid the 

 customary fee of a shilling for the life of a Mole, trapped in his 

 churchyard. 



Wild Cat. The Wild Cat appears to have become scarce in Lakeland 

 long before the Badger had begun to lose its footing among us. 

 At all events, records of the Wild Cat are difficult to find in 

 Lakeland registers, a fact which strengthens my belief that this 

 fine animal had been driven to seek refuge from its persecutors 

 among the clefts and hiding-places of the rocks as early as the 

 closing years of the seventeenth century. That it continued to 



