CLASS MAMMALIA.
49
Mr. H. M. Wallis says (Zool., 1879, p. 264): " My father
remembers seeing five full-grown Polecats killed together in a
drain, by a terrier, near Chelmsford."
Mr. Miller Christy writes : " Mr. William Raeburn informs
me that he saw, in the possession of the host of the Tower
Arms inn, at South Weald, a Polecat killed there about
twenty years ago."
Mr. Reginald W. Christy reports (Essex Nat., vol. ii.,
p. 37): " The last specimen known to have been killed in
the neighbourhood of Roxwell was trapped on the Boyton
Hall Farm in or about the year 1855."
The food of the Polecat is as varied as that of the other
members of the family, and embraces, according to some
authorities, fish, frogs, and other reptiles.
There is not much difference in appearance between a
dark Ferret and a Polecat; and the probability is that the
Ferret is simply a domesticated Polecat, but domesticated in a
warmer climate than ours. This, no doubt, accounts for the
greater susceptibility to cold of the domesticated animal.
Part of this tenderness is due, doubtless, to the conditions
under which Ferrets are reared. Mine, reared in an open
pig-court, are never the shivering animals born in warmer
situations. On the contrary, I have observed them to roll
and tumble in snow, apparently without discomfort, if not
with enjoyment.
Mustela martes, Linn. Common Marten.
The Rev. R. Lubbock, in his Fauna of Norfolk (1845),
says this animal is still occasionally found in Essex, and
there is good ground for hoping that the graceful and active
creature yet exists in the county. It was formerly very com-
mon, and I have heard old sportsmen speak of shooting it
from deserted magpies' nests.
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