H abits.—This swift and graceful creature is seldom seen by man. Living as
it does far up in the rocky recesses of the boulder-strewn hillside, or amid the
shaggy fir-woods, where only the mountain shepherd or the deer watcher passes
at rare intervals, and generally hunting for its food at night, dawn, or sundown,
it lives a life of more complete seclusion than any other British Mammal except
the hill badger. Even where it is fairly numerous it is no uncommon thing to
meet men who have spent their lives in close vicinity to this shy animal, and who
have never seen it or even suspected its presence. No wonder, then, that few
save the regular Marten-hunters ever see it in England and Wales, or the Scotch
keeper whose business it is to destroy ‘ vermin,’ and who finds one morning a
poor bedraggled ball of brown fur struggling in one of his gin-traps, for the
Marten is an easy beast to trap. Amongst those who have seen the Marten
hunting its prey there is a general opinion that its methods of taking game on
the ground are very similar to those of the stoat. The Marten is the shyest of
all creatures that dwell ‘ amidst the untrodden ways,’ and most of us who love
to watch the ways of our wild creatures must be content to study the movements
of this graceful beast when it is penned up in the narrow confines of a cage.
On the Continent the Pine Marten is to a great extent of arboreal habits,
feeding principally on squirrels, which it catches with the greatest dexterity, but,
driven from the oak woods and small covers of British lowlands, it seems to
have lost the habit in our islands, especially in England and Wales. In Scotland
it frequents the open deer forests more commonly than the fir-woods, except in
winter and early spring; but when pursued by hounds or terriers it is always
more prone to ‘ tree’ than to go to ground in cairns. In Wales and Westmorland,
and in the wilds of Ross and Sutherland, the female Marten resorts to
mountain ‘ screes’ and cairns in which it makes its summer home, but in
Ireland and sometimes in Scotland it frequently chooses the deserted nest of
‘ hoodie,’ buzzard, or a squirrel’s ‘ drey.’ In Westmorland Martens frequent the
high fells until April and May, when most of them descend to the valley woods
and make their home in old magpies’ or squirrels’ nests, but a few breed near
the tops of the highest hills.
The activity and grace with which the Marten runs and leaps along and over
branches through the forest are delightful to see. Now down over the old dead
windfalls, along the stems and through a maze of rotten boughs, now up the
bark of a pine, and out along one of its main offshoots, it runs at such a pace,
and with such certainty of purpose, that the man who would follow it afoot must
needs be young and strong. I f the pace is too lively, it will drop to earth and
bound along through the forest till some mass of evergreens or tangle of dead
trees causes the breathless pursuer to stop. The Marten seems to know their
impenetrability to clumsy man, and I have seen one stop and look back
impudently, as if certain of one’s impotency to follow, ere it disappeared. But this
was in the Canadian forests, where the Marten is commoner than here.
The favourite food of the Marten in our islands is the rabbit and the squirrel,
and in the chase after the latter it exhibits its greatest activity. It also catches
partridges, pheasants, grouse, and blackgame, and any young birds that may come
in its way, as well as small mammals, young roe, and occasionally lambs and
domestic poultry. Martens will also eat several kinds of fruit and beechmast.
The Marten has been known to rob hives of the honey.1 It is said to resort to
the seacoast at low tide and search for fish and molluscs, but I db not know on
what authority. When pursuing hares and rabbits it hunts by sight, and when
view of the game is lost will follow the trail by scent, frequently stopping to
gaze in all directions, after the manner of the stoat. The final onslaught is
delivered with a rush which the terrified victim feebly tries to avoid.
Mr. Geoffrey Mortimer, writing in the ‘ Field,’ December 7, 1901, gives some
notes on the food of Welsh Martens. He say s :
‘ In the district referred to [the wilds of Merioneth] there are great stretches of
unfired heather in which blackgame breed, and it is here that the Marten finds
much of its provender. Eggs, nestlings, poults, and mature birds are esteemed in
the dietary of this rapacious prowler. The young are caught and snapped up
before they can fly ; the older birds are surprised and seized while sleeping on the
ground at night. Even those that roost in trees like, pheasants are exposed to
the nocturnal onslaught of the Marten, for its agility in climbing and leaping from
tree to tree excels the nimbleness of the squirrel. When blackcock are not easily
found the Marten may be compelled to feed upon the lizards that come out to sun
themselves among the stones on the mountain slopes, or descending to the swamps
at the head of rivulets it captures frogs. Lower down the mountain, and especially
in the reclaimed and fenced-in pastures, moles are frequently abundant. Failing
other fare the Marten slinks by the mounds of freshly turned earth, watching
closely for the least movement of the soil, in the same way that foxes and terriers
lie in wait when hunting for this subterranean game. The earth gives a scarcely
perceptible heave as the mole tunnels just below the surface ; but the Marten is
1 Field, May 17, 1873; April 4, 1874; and February 10, .1877.
VOL. II.