The Scottish Naturalist. 5 1 



occurrence. Seven others are not very rare, but are chiefly 

 confined to the northern seas; and the remaining dozen have 

 mostly been very seldom seen, or at least identified. It is 

 noteworthy that five species which have been found in the 

 Scottish seas have not yet occurred on the English coasts ; while 

 on the other hand, four English species cannot yet with certainty 

 be included in our list, though two of them probably visit our 

 shores. Seven Scottish species have not yet been recorded 

 as Irish. 



Of the thirty species of land-mammals, nineteen are more 

 or less widely distributed, though some of them are absent from, 

 or rare in, certain districts ; ten are now rather local, having 

 in some cases become almost or quite extinct in wide districts 

 of the Lowlands ; and one (the Black Rat), formerly not un- 

 common, is rapidly vanishing altogether, and, in fact, may be 

 considered almost extinct as a native animal, the few specimens 

 that occur now being generally found in or near sea-ports, 

 where it is probably a recent introduction. Mr Alston does 

 well to caution investigators not to confound the black variety 

 of the Water Vole with the true Black Rat, for which ignorant 

 observers may mistake it. 



Of the Scottish terrestrial mammals, only one — the Blue or 

 Mountain Hare — is said not to occur in England, but not less 

 than twelve are absent from Ireland. On the other hand, nine 

 bats and the dormouse occur in England and not in Scotland, 

 and four bats in Ireland and not in Scotland. 



In the second part of his catalogue Mr Alston treats us to 

 some interesting particulars of certain extinct species. Of these 

 the one which was the latest to disappear was the Wolf (Cam's 

 lupus L.), which seems to have lingered on till 1743, when the 

 last was killed in Morayshire, the slayer thereof surviving till 

 1797, so that the tradition was still fresh at the beginning of 

 this century. The Wolf seems to have been not uncommon 

 in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and is mentioned in 

 several old laws of that period, while there are no less than 

 five Gaelic names for it. 



The Brown Bear (Ursus ardos L.), for which there are two 

 Gaelic names, disappeared at a much earlier date — probably 

 not later than the ninth or tenth century, if not much earlier. 



The Wild Boar (Sus scrofa L.) would appear to have been 

 a later survivor, but as early as the thirteenth century seems to 

 have required special protection, and probably soon after became 



