MAMMALIA 27 



^iii size as either Martens or Foumarts. The largest Stoat that 

 I have seen in the flesh was killed on our northern border 

 in March 1885, a male, in the ordinary brown pelage. The 

 head and body of this animal, irrespective of the tail, measured 

 13 inches, thus exceeding the figures given in Bell's British 

 Quadrupeds by more than 2 inches. 



POLECAT or FOUMART. 



Mustela putoria, L. 



Within the last thirty years the Polecat has become very 

 scarce in Lakeland. Formerly it was to be found in almost 

 every dale, and on all the mosses, seldom venturing to seek 

 shelter among the crags and boulders behind which the ' Sweet 

 Mart' lodged, but enjoying a very general distribution from the 

 mosses round Morecambe Bay to the wild wastes which march 

 with the Debateable Land. The active yeomen, to whom this 

 animal was an object of admiration from the sport which it 

 afforded to their hounds and the determination of its defence, 

 early learnt to call it the Foul Mart, in contradistinction to the 

 Clean Mart or Sweet Mart. Latterly the name of Foul Mart 

 has been shortened by the contraction into Foumart, under 

 which it is still well known on all our country-sides, though now 

 very scarce in most parts of the Lake district. My inquiries 

 about Foumarts commenced about nine years since, and were 

 made from likely individuals in all quarters. At that time the 

 Foumart had nearly disappeared from all the dales which it 

 formerly frequented, and had become almost extinct on most of 

 the lower grounds. A few individuals lingered in the Eden 

 valley, while others haunted sedgy fields and rough meadows 

 on our northern border. The real stronghold of the species in 

 the Cumbrian plain was then, and still is, a narrow strip of 

 timbered and marshy country extending from Carlisle to 

 Wigton, Maryport, and Bowness ; that tract, in fact, which lies 

 between the Solway Firth and the Maryport and Carlisle 

 Railway. But before we discuss the latest details in the history 

 of our Foumarts, it may be convenient to consider the distribu- 

 tion which this animal formerly enjoyed. Up to the middle of 



