THE NATURALIST.

MARTENS.

Few thoughts are more saddening to the over of nature than the conviction that several of our native quadrupeds, and many of our birds, are slowly but surely perishing. When gunpowder came into general use their fate was sealed, though their departure might be postponed for many years. The spread of population, more general cultivation, game preserving, even the interest in their habits, which is betokened by published descriptions and national collections and , museums, have accelerated iheir extinction.

. The marten, or marten cat, as it is sometimes termed, is really no cat, but an arboreal weasel. It is fond of rocky ground and cairns, and, if taken young, becomes a pleasing pet from its graceful shape and playful habits. Until quite recent years, it was believed by zoologists that we possessed two species of marten, the same as are found over all the Northern parts of the Continent, and the last edition of Bell's "British Quadrupeds " (1874) describes both as natives of Great Britain. In 1879, however, the late Mr E. R. Alston, after long study of the animal, read a paper before the Zoological Society, in which he showed that there is only one British species — Ufartes abiteum, or pine marten, with a yellow breast — and that the other (the stone or beech marten), described by LinnasusJ as differing in the possession of a white throat, had no existence with us. The pine marten still lives in the wilder parts of the country, such as the Lake district, North Wales, the North ,of Scotland, and some parts of Ireland, but apparently in decreasing numbers year by year. So late, however, as 1872 one was killed within. 20 miles from London to the northwards. A writer in the Field some time ago only knew of one specimen of the whitethroated variety having ever been killed in Ireland. It might well have been an old specimen, or one that had been killed for some years, and in which the rich yellow of the throat had faded from exposure to the light. In county Eoscommon it is upon record that a pair of martens once took up their abode in a rookery, and the rooks, after a couple of years, deserted it. No nest would be safe from the depredations of these clever climbers and fell foes of all birds.

The marten has now become in England a very scarce animal. In Cranbourne Chase it is nearly extinct. In Wastwater and Borrowdale it is said to be decreasing, being sometimes chased by hourlds, in which case it invariably makes for rocks or cairns instead of trusting itself in'trees. It is reported in the Lake district to kill lambs and even sheep, by getting on their backs and biting them under the ear. This story, however, must be taken cum grano.

The marten is evidently a member of a doomed race. It is annually decreasing— steadily, and at the present rate will be exterminated in a quarter of a century more.

No creature is so unsuspicious of guile as the marten, hence, it falls an easy victim to the gamekeeper's trap. The prices, too, which are paid for its fur combine to deprive the animal of any chance of life, unless it be forthwith protected.

In Scotland the marten's head and skin form a favourite fur for a sporran; while both here and in England the pride with which a man avows his having been lucky enough to shoot one severely tells on the numbers of the animal. Farriers and curi-osity-hunters still more enhance the value put upon its head.

The Multiplication of Aphides. — Perhaps no more striking illustration of the wonderful reproductive power of certain insects could be given than that contained in a work recently published by Theodore Wood, an English entomologist. It is assuraed, first, that 100 aphides weigh no more, collectively, than a single grain; and, second, that only a very stout man can weigh as much as 2,000,000 grains. Then it is found that if multiplication were entirely unchecked, the tenth brood alone of the descendants of a single aphis would be equivalent, in point of actual number, to more than 500,000,000 very stout men, or onethird of the human population of the globe, supposing each person to weigh 2801b.

— An old gentleman of peculiar ideas was asked to pay his surgeon's bill. " Sir," said he to the boy in waiting, " tell your master that I shall pay for his medicines, but his visits I shall return."