24 VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF LAKELAND 



herring which had been steeped in water was very frequently 

 employed. 



During the last nine years I have conversed with many per- 

 sons who have hunted ' Marts,' or who had received them from 

 Lakeland for preservation, but I have met no one who in a 

 knowledge of ' Marts ' could compare with the intimacy of that 

 keenest and gamest of old hunters, Tommy Lindsay of Eskdale; 

 accordingly I have drawn fully on his experience. But he begs 

 me to say that his old friends Cookson and Tommy Dobson are 

 or were quite as successful hunters as himself, and are equally 

 qualified to speak authoritatively. The average weight of a dog 

 ' Mart ' runs from 4 lbs. to 5 lbs. It is curious that so interest- 

 ing a species as this Marten should have been ignored by early 

 local writers. Dr. Heysham only tells us that ' the Martin is 

 much less frequent than the foulmart. It inhabits woods, and 

 its smell is rather agreeable than otherwise.' The Doctor seems 

 on this occasion to have copied Richardson, who had written 

 that the ' Clean Mart ' occasionally afforded good sport to the 

 hunters in the woods and about the rocks, and that its skin was 

 in much estimation. The author of the Observations, chiefly Litho- 

 logical, visited Keswick in 1803. He there drew up this note : 

 1 The foul and sweet Marts (as is the provincial expression for 

 the Martin) are very common here, and are valuable on account 

 of their skins. The first sells for eightpence in the market, and 

 the latter for four shillings and sixpence.' The Pine Marten 

 does not seem to have been paid for as ' Vermin ' in many of 

 our parishes. The only references that I have been able to dis- 

 cover exist in the parish books of Patterdale, Greystoke, and 

 Kendal. The entries in the first two of these are most meagre, 

 and relate only to four or five animals, described as 'Marts.' 

 For example, I find an entry in the Greystoke accounts for 1825 : 

 ' Novr. 5. To Jno. Ubank for 2 Marts, £0, 5s. 0d.' Even the 

 number mentioned in the Kendal books is inconsiderable. The 

 largest number ever paid for, separately at any rate, in one year, 

 was only five, though the northern portion of the parish included 

 some of the strongholds of this species, such as the crags of 

 Kentmere. If the reader will take the trouble to compare the 

 following figures from the Kendal parish books with those of 



