OUT IN THE OPEN

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 105, 31 October 1945, Page 6

OUT IN THE OPEN

POLECATS AND OTHERS

(By I. W. T. Munro.)

Three members of the polecat family known as Mustelidae flourish in New Zealand. These are the "common" weasel, Putorius vulgaris to the scientists; the stoat, • Putorius erminea, whose white winter coat, with blacktipped tail, provides the ermine of the furriers; and the polecat, Putorius foetidus, also very appropriately named "foetidus," meaning "stinking." With equal candour, the West of England folk call it the "fou' mart"—foulmarten. The name of the polecat, is, however, less often heard now as an abusive epithet since settlers in North America discovered an even more malodorous member of the same family and adopted the Indian word for it —skunk. * MALODOROUS ANIMAL. Of the three, the polecat was the first arrival, coming in. under its domestic name of ferret The Canterbury Acclimatisation Society imported five in 1867 and another one "in the following year, and for several years bred from them, selling the1 progeny. Probably there were unrecorded private importations as well. It was not until I§B2, 15 years afterwards, that the Government, usually blamed for the introduction of these: beasts, obtained some from England, yielding to the pressure of sheep farmers. In the following year, the Government offered a bonus to anyone importing stoats and weasels, and, although, the documentary evidence is lacking, it. was always admitted, until the beasts became unpopular, that, many of the acclimatisation societies earned the bonus. The Government imported two shipments, totalling 183 weasels and 55 stoats, in 1885. ■