“MR CURIOSITY”

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 19959, 17 November 1934, Page 22

“MR CURIOSITY”

THE WAYS OF THE MARTEN MYSTERIOUS ANIMAL The stores which I had shouldered over many miles of rough forest were scattered about the floor of my tent; they were so completely spoiled that I was due for a supperless evening. But more annoying was the fact that I knew not who had done the damage (writes Harper Cory in the “Manchester Guardian”). A flour-covered patch of ground might have revealed evidence but for the fact that my dog had been at pains to dance and cavort over the tracks until they were obliterated. A tin of honey had been spilled on the ground. At first I thought that I had been visited by a bear, but he would have licked up every scrap of honey—he is too fond of the stuff to waste a single drop of it. Every possible package had been torn or opened in a spirit, as it seemed to me, of idle curiosity. After much patient searching I found a few dark-brown hairs on my blanket roll, and on a patch of sugared soil was one solitary footprint, that of a; small, broad, furred foot. It could have been made only by one creature, the marten; therefore, I was extremely surprised. If curiosity is a sign of intelligence the marten is thoroughly intelligent. He is extremely shy of man, and he will leave a district as soon as the farmer starts to clear the land. He will not approach a settlement, and in no circumstances will he visit the farmer’s chicken-house. And yet a specimen of this family had played havoc with my belongings! Examining the hairs and footprint afresh, I judged that my visitor was a youngster, and I determined to set eyes on him if he was still in the district. So Rover was ordered to lie quite inside the tent while I sat outside on a fallen log and whistled. A Musical Lure Martens have no love for modernistic noises, but there is a musical form which is irresistable to them. And so

I whistled “Abide With Me” and “God Save the King” as sorrowfully as I could, until I feared that I should blow my front teeth out. It was depressing and any passing stranger hearing my efforts would have been almost justified in thinking that the solitudes of that vast northern forest had turned by brain. But the swaying of a branch or two, as though agitated by the gymnastics of a squirrel, assured me that I was to be rewarded. My prize arrived so abruptly that I nearly cheated byself by moving with surprise. A small dark head popped round the bole of a tree, and Mr Curiosity seemed to waggle his long whiskers like semaphore flags. He studied me carefully with his beady eyes, then slowly crept round the trunk until I could see his bushy soft black tail, which was quite half as long as his body. He measured about twenty inches from his nose to the tip of his tail. He had little or no fear of me. but he was taking no foolish risks, even though I sat notionless. Then, of course, a bloodthirsty mosquito had to dig his red-hot pincers maliciously into my neck, and I both jumped and roared. The marten disappeared like a streak of lightning, his faith in man shattered for ever; and that was the last I saw of him. The Marten’s Life The marten is extremely agile, and he rivals the squirrel for climbing and running in the trees. He looks meek and docile and his antics while aloft are comical; but he has so many enemies to discourage that he readily becomes savage and ferocious. As an additional protection he produces a musky odour which to most of his carnivorous foes is decidedly unpleasand. Never does he relax his vigilance, and when crossing the open he darts swiftly from bush to bush, hug-

ging the shelter of every possible scrap of cover, whenever possible choosing cover of a colour similar to that of his fur. He is a tireless wanderer; and according to Redskin friends, large flocks of martens migrate northwards or southwards when their feedinggrounds near the point of exhaustion. They are omnivorous creatures, and, like squirrels, they make large caches of nuts and berries, particularly rowanberries, during autumn. And the marten remembers the location of every cache. Discovering one such store, I moved the berries to a fresh hiding-place, then lay waiting to see the result. The marten recovered his store, licked each nut in squirrel fashion, and carried it back to the original hiding-place. His Family Martens mate in late January or early February, and the young are born about the beginning of April, the litter ranging from one to four in number. The nest is usually built in the high hollow of a standing tree, but sometimes the marten will forcibly ! eject a squirrel and take possession of ■ his lodge. The young are kept in the I lodge for ten weeks, and the mother j suckles them until they are about four • months old. She is apt to be quarrelsome at this time, and so the marten takes little notice of his offspring, leaving his mate to feed and educate them. As soon as not he will make a new nest for himself as soon as the young are weaned.

Because he prefers close brushwood and dense trees and the gloom of the forest rather than its fringes the wild marten is not often seen abroad, and so our knowledge of his characteristics is still imperfect. He is not, however, a purely nocturnal creature,

for he has been seen and photographed in daylight. He is easy prey for the photographer, provided that the latter is a fast worker and has a speedy lens. As soon as the photographer notices the small, clean thumb-like impression of the marten on the soft ground or snow he retreats until he has a portion of the nearest trunk in focus. Then he whistles any slow, solemn tune, and down comes Mr Curiosity to investigate. He flashes out of sight as soon as he hears the soft click of the shutter, and so the first photograph must be a good one. There is no second opportunity. But as often as not it is the marten who sees before he is seen: and then he will sit like a tiny graven image with only his head poking out of the door of his nest.