We are at a loss to know how Mr. Colquhoun came to form the opinion that the Marten is not indigenous to the British Islands. At page 165 he says, "this beautiful creature is, as I have stated in a previous chapter (p. 79), an importation from the forests of America"!
This is evidently a misapprehension. Not only would it not be difficult to find evidence of the existence of Martens in the British Islands long before the discovery of America (according to Sir Robert Gordon[1] they were found in Scotland prior to 1630), but the American Martens, of which there are two species, M. americana and Pennantii, are regarded by the best authorities as specifically distinct from ours:[2] and even were it otherwise, there would be no need to go to America for the origin of our British race, since both the Pine and the Beech Marten are generally distributed throughout Western Europe, occurring in France and Italy, inhabiting the temperate parts of Russia, and occurring also in the Crimea and Caucasus.[3] We believe the two forms to which the above names are applied are now generally regarded by zoologists as specifically distinct. Mr. Colquhoun considers them to be merely the sexes of one species.
Space does not permit us to examine the arguments which have been adduced in support of these different views, and we must therefore refer our readers to what has been stated thereon in the second edition of Bell's 'British Quadrupeds,' where the question of the specific identity or otherwise of the two forms is fully discussed, and the conclusion arrived at is that they are distinct.
In concluding our notice of Mr. Colquhoun's book, we may remark that the pleasant way in which he has mingled his observations on the habits of game and wild animals in Scotland with an account of his successful pursuit of them render it attractive alike to the sportsman and the naturalist.
- ↑ 'History of the Earldom of Sutherland.'
- ↑ Dr. Elliott Coues, in his 'Monograph of the Fur-hearing Animals of North America,' observes (p. 74):—"The material before me indicates, with little hazard of error, that the American form is specifically distinct from both the Beech Marten and the Pine Marten of Europe."
- ↑ See Lord Clermont's 'Guide to the Quadrupeds and Reptiles of Europe,' p. 58.
