MAMMALS dergraduate at Cambridge surprised him by- stating that from time to time a considerable number of live martens had been sent to him from Ireland, several of which had escaped and were then living at large in his neigh- bourhood in the south of England ; the same thing may well have happened in Norfolk {or Suffolk) without its being suspected.' In the Norwich Mercury of 2 1 December 1 8 1 1 is the report of the 'Suffolk Gamekeepers' Annual Meeting ' held at Bury St. Edmunds on 9 December of that year, at which a prize was given to one Sharnton as the most suc- cessful gamekeeper. This man had the over- looking of 4,000 acres, and among the' vermin' destroyed by him in the preceding year are enumerated three martens.' The Messrs. Paget refer to the marten as occurring
- formerly at Herringfleet and Tofts ; ' now
extremely rare.' A specimen was now and then captured in Ubbeston Wood during the first quarter of the last century, and the writer's father remembers having seen one in that parish nailed upon a barn. 15. Polecat. Putorius putorius, h'mn. Bell — Mustek putorius. There is abundant evidence to show that this animal was formerly common in most parts of the county, and until about the middle of the last century it does not appear to have been considered rare. The late Rev. H. T. Frere, writing in the Zoologist ior 1849, p. 2493, states that * the polecat is to be found on most rabbit warrens. In some parts of Suffolk it is far too common.' The con- tinual persecution however to which its pre- dacious habits have always rendered it liable, together with the greatly increased area de- voted to game preserving, in time began to make an appreciable reduction in the numbers of this animal, and its almost complete ex- tirpation from the greater part of the county has gradually been effected. In the west and north-west the polecat appears to have held its ground longer than elsewhere. In the ' See an article entitled ' Martens in Suffolk,' T. Southwell, Zool. 1877, p. 338, vifhere the number is stated, as given by Mr. Gurney in his communication to the Norf. and Nor. Nat. Society's Trans, ii. 224, as 'forty-three' ! — an error which has been extensively copied. Mr. Southwell has since been at considerable pains to get at the original newspaper report, which he ultimately discovered in the Norwich Mercury of 2 1 December 18 1 1, where, as above stated, the number of martens is ' three ' and not ' forty-three.' It is impossible now to say how the original error arose. ' Probably Toft Monks near Aldeby, which is in Norfolk. Mildenhall district, and especially about the fen country between that town and Ely, it is still frequently met with. A gamekeeper from whom the Rev. B. P. Oakes obtained a specimen captured at Beck Row, a hamlet of Mildenhall, about the year 1897, told him that he had killed thirty-eight ! including young ones, in the course of the year, and that he believed polecats to be common in the fens towards Ely, and that they worked up to Beck Row along the dykes. In 1898 Mr. Travis, the Bury St. Edmunds taxi- dermist, received one from Cavenham, some 7 or 8 miles north-west of that town, and also one from Mildenhall in the same year, both these examples being killed during February, on the 3rd and 15th respectively. Three others obtained in the Mildenhall dis- trict during the same year were seen and examined by the Rev. J. G. Tuck. The following curious capture of a polecat is from the Ipswich yournal of 23 February 1895 : ' At Isleham in the Cambridgeshire fens ' a polecat has been found by the lockkeeper with its feet frozen to the top of the lock gate. It had evidently stopped on the gate to watch some object of prey.' In the same journal of the date of 28 March i888 one of these animals is reported to have been caught at Mildenhall in a trap set for an otter. Mr. W. G. Clarke, in a letter to the writer, refers to the capture of one of these animals about the year 1898 at Lakenheath, and also to its former occurrence both at Fakenham and Euston. At Barnham in the same district Mr. F. Norgate started a very big polecat from a rabbit hole on 21 August 1890. As regards the north-eastern part of the county, the last polecats known by Mr. W. M. Crowfoot of Beccles to have been killed in his neighbourhood were trapped at Worlingham about the year 1859 or i860. A very large male was exhibited at a dealer's stall at Yarmouth market in November 1867. It was said to have been killed somewhere in the neighbourhood, but whether in Norfolk or Suffolk was not specified." The late Rev. H. T. Frere, writing to Mr. Southwell in December 1870, referring to a period about twenty years previous to that date, mentions this species as being ' common enough about Diss.' He further stated, 'They seem to leave the lower grounds about October, and when I lived at Roydon Hall we were sure to catch several about that time under the roots of a particular pollard oak, through 1 The river Lark at Isleham forms the boundary between Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. " T. E. Gunn, Zoologist, 1869, p. 1925. 221
