MAMMALIA 23 



ground, and occasionally kill a ' Mart ' ; this, however, is now a 

 much rarer event than formerly. But it must not be imagined 

 that the hounds ever killed many l Marts ' in a season. It was 

 never so known in Lakeland. Any large figures should be dis- 

 counted liberally. Lindsay says that he never remembers more 

 than five or six being killed in Eskdale in a single winter, even 

 when the animal was comparatively plentiful. 



An aged native of Boarsdale, who had often hunted ' Marts,' 

 doubted if as many as five or six were ever killed in a season 

 in Martindale, Patterdale, and the country round. In Wastdale 

 'not more than four to six are killed by the hounds each year,' 

 wrote Dr. Parker rather more than thirteen years ago. 1 



Yet it must not be supposed that Martens are or were obtained 

 only with the fox-hounds and otter-hounds. The last that was 

 caught among the crags at the head of Martindale had had the 

 misfortune to stray into an ordinary steel trap set for rabbits, a 

 circumstance by no means very rare. Indeed, the keepers whom 

 the tourists thoughtlessly persuade to procure specimens of the 

 Marten generally take them in steel traps baited with carrion. 

 One old method was identical with the species of trap known 

 a ' deadfall.' The animal was of course crushed by the ' dead- 

 fall.' 



Fifty years ago a dog ' Mart ' fetched 6s. 6d. at Kendal for 

 the sake of his skin. A bitch fetched 5 s. 6d. for the same 

 purpose. On the other hand, plenty of men about Whitehaven 

 and elsewhere in the west were at that time only too glad to 

 purchase live Otters, ' Foumarts,' and ' Marts ' for their dogs to 

 kill. Though the poor ' Mart ' could not fight as ferociously as 

 the Foumart, yet it was considered game enough to show good 

 sport. Accordingly a ' Mart ' that was caught ' wick,' — the term 

 applied locally to all ' vermin ' caught alive, — readily commanded 

 ten shillings. The trap, therefore, devised to take the ' Mart ' 

 'wick' was constructed on the same principle as the schoolboy's 

 ( brick trap.' In lieu of bricks the trapper employed three long 

 flags of nice grey stone, covered by a fourth, and set in the 

 haunts of the ' Mart.' It was sometimes baited with carrion, or 

 with a dead bird, but the most successful bait was fish. A salt 

 1 Zoologist, 1879, p. 171. 



