can eat or carry away, but in this respect it is not nearly so great a sinner as the
stoat or the fox. In severe winters it will often attack hen-roosts and play much
havoc with the poultry, and being a beast that is easily trapped it generally pays
the price of its temerity.
The Marten is fond of passing the day ensconced in a tree-trunk or squirrel’s
drey, and when not asleep loves to lie with its nose just poking out, watching all
that is going on in the woods round about. As the evening shadows fall it goes
for a hunt, and a pair may sometimes be seen chasing each other and romping
amongst the branches.
The surprising leaps of this animal are executed with a certainty and ease that
are truly wonderful. It runs up the main stem with all four limbs extended and
ascends rapidly, somewhat after the manner of the squirrel, to the angle of some
protruding limb, where it often squats for a moment to mark out its subsequent
line of movement amongst the interlacing boughs. Along here it runs or gallops,
often stopping to gaze, and when small branches are encountered it scrambles
over the twigs with a delicious boneless grace. Its actual leaps seldom exceed
ten feet, but when a drop is necessary to catch some bough below, its aerial flight
seems still greater, although it is not so in reality. Mr. A. H. Cocks showed me
one of his cages which contained a beautiful Irish Marten. Its breadth would be
about 14 feet, and in the exuberance of play the animal would often spring from
a platform at one end right on to the wire front at a single leap.
The Marten is a shy, timid creature, resenting confinement, though not so
much so as the American fisher. It is wonderfully loose-jointed, and can squeeze
itself through very small apertures. In America and Canada Martens frequently
make use of the holes of the great black woodpecker, and are said to do so in
Norway; but in this country they have not been seen to enter woodpecker holes,
and Mr. Harting doubts the possibility of their using such small apertures.
However, if we turn to Mr. A. Heneage Cocks’s notes in the ‘ Zoologist ’ 1 we find
that a tame adult female Marten found her way out of an inner cage and then
squeezed back again through an opening of only one inch and a half. Green
woodpecker holes are often larger than this.
Martens usually have one litter in the year of from two to five in number,
but seven have been noted in Ireland, and in good seasons when food is plentiful
the female may perhaps breed twice. Mr. A. H. Cocks bred Martens in confinement
in 1882, 1884, 1885, and 1893 from two different females. The first pair,
1 June 1897, p. 270.
which bred on three occasions, died well on in their seventeenth year. He
discovered that the young when born were white—a remarkable fact. His notes
on the breeding in captivity of the Marten are so full of interesting points that I
give them in full.
* So far as I have been able to ascertain, there is no instance recorded of this
Pine Marten (or other species of the genus) breeding in captivity; and but little
appears to be known concerning its reproduction in a wild state, for in no book
that I have met with is mention made of the remarkable difference in the colour
of the young when first born, which surely would have been noticed had the fact
been known. An adult female Pine Marten sent to me from Cumberland in May
1876 had for the last two if not three years shared a cage with a male of the
same species without showing any signs of breeding until at about 1 1 p .m . on
April 7, 1882, I heard the unmistakable whimpering or squealing of young ones
proceeding from one of the bed-boxes in this cage. I had fed the Martens about
six o’clock, and feel certain that no young were then born. I at once shut off the
male animal, not knowing how he might treat the youngsters. On the morning
of the 10th I ventured to take out one of the young ones. It was about 6 in. long,
including the tail, which was about, or nearly, if in. long, and appeared out of all
proportion in so young an animal, and was in shape and in proportion to the
head and body like that member in an adult stoat. It will, I believe, be a
surprise to others, as it certainly was to me, to learn that this species is at first
quite white, the coat being, of course, fine and short. On the 14th I again looked
at the young, and found them to be three in number—two males and one female.
They were white, getting grizzled like very young polecat ferrets, coats longer and
rougher than before, and bodies heavier and stouter, but not perceptibly longer
than on the 10th. Certainly if I had met with these cubs without knowing their
parentage I should not have guessed them to be Pine Martens, but should have
been inclined to suppose they were young polecat ferrets, or perhaps, chiefly in
consideration of their tails, young stoats, with the young of which species I am
unacquainted.
‘ On the 1 8th the cubs were shifted by their mother to the other bed-box,
probably in consequence of my having disturbed them. I was obliged to go into the
cage at least once a day to attend to the male, which I had shut into a smaller
cage, enclosed in the other, and also to two other Martens in a cage beyond,
to which the only access was through the cages tenanted by the nursery party.
‘ The mother is an exceptionally shy specimen, and these constant visits and