Page:The Zoologist, 3rd series, vol 1 (1877).djvu/277

Rh of these was not much longer than a good-sized Squirrel, but the other was more bulky and evidently older. This happened several years ago, and I did not take either the length or weight of the juveniles, but their occurrence at that season of the year is in favour of Mr. Southwell's conclusions as to the time of breeding. How long a time does it take the Otter to attain maturity? About the middle of November last a young Badger was sent from the New Forest to my house in Hampshire, but unfortunately I was away, and consequently it was not preserved; it was about a foot in length, but my friends did not weigh it. A friend of mine in the forest asked me how long a Badger went with young, as he had kept a female a year or more, and then she had young, but died soon after. I confessed my ignorance of the matter, and told him I believed the period of gestation was almost if not quite unknown. Has the time been proved with certainty? I quite believe, with Mr. Southwell, that the pairing of any animal in confinement is not of much value as an indication of what takes place in a state of nature, for we well know that domestication, or even semi-domestication, often has strange effects upon the creatures taken under man's careful supervision.— (Ringwood, Hants).

—My Badger, which had her first family of one (a female) on February 27th, last year, presented me with another family on the evening of February 16th, this year. Naturalists will therefore be glad to learn that I can now settle that vexed question, the gestation of these curious animals, for this Badger has gone with young a year all but about seventeen days. I cannot say how many there are, for the apartment is a long hollow tree, which I cannot see far into. It was seven weeks before the young one turned out last year, and then its mother was very anxious that it should not be seen, and soon carried it back in her mouth. The reason I think there are several is from the music they make, which is very like that made by Ferrets. I have known a wild Badger have five young ones. It has been ascertained in Germany that the Roe has the power of suspending the time of gestation, and this seems to be the only way of accounting for the fact of wild-caught Badgers going as long as fifteen months with young.— (Whitmoor House, Guildford).

—I send the following account of a comparatively recent capture of a Marten-cat in Lincolnshire, as there are not many of our English counties that can still reckon this animal with any certainty among its fauna. It occurred in a large wood of more than five hundred acres, called South Wood, belonging to Mr. Thomas Drake, of Stainfield Hall. A cousin of mine, Mr. F.F. Morres, was shooting with a party of two or three others during the Christmas vacation of 1871–72 in the above-named wood, which was still famed as the haunt of Martens, one or more being generally killed there every winter. The owner has numerous specimens preserved in various attitudes. The party had been shooting all