Cylchgronau Cymru

have been maintained until the end of the 18th century, with some parishes paying only half of this rate for a cub Fox. From 1800 the payment rose substantially, reaching its highest (recorded) level of £ 1/1/- at Llanfair in 1841, though full-grown Foxes were fetching £ in 1852 at Ffestiniog and in 1861 at Llanenddwyn-in both cases cubs were rated at half this sum. Elsewhere, Llangelynin church- wardens were paying only ten shillings for adult Foxes and five shillings for cubs as late as 1861. In this matter of payments, most parishes seem to have acted completely independently, and conditions must have been ideal for the likely lads of the time; suspicion of sharp practice doubtless prompted the vestry of 1 October 1861 in Llanenddwyn to record: 'The Parish officers are not to pay for any Fox which shall be killed out of this Parish'. In similar vein the Llanbedr vestry of 31 May 1830 demanded that Fox corpses be produced in Llanbedr churchyard the Sunday after their death, presumably (as Caernarvonshire Quarter Sessions Records noted in an earlier period) to avoyde fraude and deceit in the killer of any of the sd vermines, in bringing the sayd vermine twice'. Bolam (1913) mentions the custom at Dinas Mawddwy whereby a Fox killed in the parish had to be hung up for several days before the reward could be obtained. The manner in which Foxes were killed is not usually detailed, but "shooting" is entered in Gwyddelwern records for 1738, and two entries elsewhere show ancillary payments-in 1843 to Griffith Jones at Llanfair concerning a foxhound, and in 1863 to Robert Jones at Ffestiniog 'for meat for the foxhounds'. Possibly the foot pack has thus been the tradition in Merioneth for very many years now, a tradition brought about by necessity in the rough upland terrain. An average of 966 Foxes was killed annually in Merioneth from 1948 to 1968 (M.A.F.F. reports); by this standard the numbers killed in the 18th and 19th centuries were very low since only rarely were more than five Foxes recorded killed in one parish in any one year. The numbers destroyed in the parish of Llanfor over a 39-year period in the 18th century are shown in Fig. 1, and if this is typical, then the total number of Foxes killed throughout the county would have been small. However, so many records are missing that this inference may not be valid. (b) Polecat For a county supposedly well-placed within the known past distribution of this species, Merioneth has relatively very few records of Polecats amongst its parish bounty payments. Perhaps this animal was not generally considered to be an important pest, but whatever the real reason, in only two parishes are direct references made to this species by the name by which we know it today. In the four years 1729-1732 about twenty were killed in Towyn parish, where 2/6 was paid for a full-grown Polecat and half this sum for a young 'kittin'. Records for Llanfor, included in Fig. 1, show that only 42 were killed in the 39-year period 1720-1758, the payment being