Page:VCH Suffolk 1.djvu/258

 A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK species has also been observed at East Berg- holt, a mile or two further down the river, by Mr. C. Whiting. Cats not unfrequently kill this animal, as well as the other British shrews. The Oared Shrew {Sorex rtmifer. Bell), formerly considered to be specifically distinct, but now looked upon as a variety of C. fodiens, also occurs in the county. The under parts in this animal are almost as dark as the back, and the general colour much resembles that of the mole. On 5 September 1900, in a meadow at Blaxhall, I met with one of these big dark-coloured shrews. It was a pregnant female, and so large that before picking it up I took it for a half-grown mole. Hoping to have leisure to examine it carefully on the morrow, I placed it in a large cage with earth, water, a bed of dry grass and a plentiful supply of earthworms, one of which it at once seized and devoured. But in the morn- ing it had disappeared most unaccountably. This shrew was certainly larger than a full- grown house mouse [M. musculus). Its climb- ing powers were considerable, for it not only easily ascended the upright wires of the cage, but even made its way along the top, clinging, back downwards, to the wires. The fact of its being with young at this season seems to denote that more than one litter may be pro- duced during the year. Many years ago one was seen by the writer on the bank of a pond in the same parish which he believes to have been still larger. CARNIVORA 13. Fox. Fulpes vu/peSy Linn. Bell — Vulpes vulgaris. In Suffolk foxes are not often met with far from the hunting districts, which are situated (broadly speaking) in the central, southern and extreme western parts of the county, hunted respectively by the Suffolk, Essex and Suffolk, and Newmarket and Thurlow foxhounds. From time to time one of these animals makes its appearance among the game pre- serves in other parts of the county, where it does not always receive a very hearty welcome. On the Campsea Ashe estate, which for many years has been occasionally visited by these animals, one was shot in the autumn of 1902 at a fir plantation on Tunstall Heath, and another was killed at Ramsholt in December of that year. About the same time a fox was known to frequent the neigh- bourhood of Pettistree. The late Mr. Hele of Aldeburgh' gives an instance of a dead fox having been found floating in the river near that town in 1864, and in the same year of an old and decrepit vixen having been trapped on a warren close by. Formerly these animals must have been generally dis- tributed throughout the county, and their frequent depredations in the poultry yard and among the young lambs led to a reward be- ing offered in many parishes for their destruc- tion. In the churchwardens' accounts for the parish of Freston near Ipswich there are several entries of sums paid during the latter part of the eighteenth century for the destruc- tion of foxes, the amount varying at that time from u. to 2;. bd. per head. Jottings about Aldeburgh, by N. F. Hale, 1870. 14. Pine Marten. Mustela martes, Linn. Bell — Maries abietum. In a part of the country where the destruc- tion of every beast or bird supposed to be in any way harmful to game goes on unceas- ingly year after year one can hardly expect to find many carnivorous mammals still sur- viving. The larger species are usually the first to disappear, and that beautiful and graceful animal the marten, the largest of our British weasels, has long been extinct as a resident species. Yet as lately as the year 1889 a marten was shot on 29 May in a Scotch fir plantation at Sutton near Wood- bridge, and another is said to have been seen at the same time. According to a report of this occurrence in the Field of 13 July 1889, p. 45, the animal destroyed was a male, measuring 27 inches in length and weighing a trifle over 4 lb. When shot it was carrying in its mouth a full-grown young wood-pigeon. It was stuffed by Mr. Asten of Woodbridge. As it is probably not less than sixty or seventy years since the marten became extinct in Suffolk it is difficult to account for its re- appearance after so long an interval. If these two individuals could possibly have wandered from any existing habitat of the species, they did well to escape detection, considering the distance they must have travelled. Remark- ing on some similar occurrences of this animal in Norfolk in comparatively recent times Mr. Southwell {Trans. Nor/, and Nor. Nat. Soc. ii. 668) writes as follows : 'That these were escapes I have no doubt, although un- able to trace them. To show how easily this may occur, I was informed by a friend (Prof. Newton) that some years ago an un- 220