The Vertebrates op Solway. 19 



verg-e of extinction. While never really common, it was well 

 known and of general distribution. For the last half century its 

 existence has been precarious. There have been several introduc- 

 tions on well-known estates, and this has helped to maintain the 

 Hadger as a local animal. Although the general opinion is that 

 the last of the native Badgers met their fate about 1860, there is 

 a reasonable belief that all along the old indigenous breed has had 

 a survivor here and there. " Dumfries Badgei-s," which, however, 

 were nearly all procured in the Stewartiy, were at one time ni 

 great demand by our southern neighbours, and were reckoned the 

 gamest that could be obtained anywhere. 



The Common Seal {Phoca vitulina, Linn.). 



There is every i-eason to believe that the Common Seal does 

 not visit our waters with the regularity that was formerly the 

 case. Up till the last ten or twelve years a few stragglers of the 

 herd that annually migrates in late autumn along the western 

 shores of Scotland reached the Galloway coast, and from the 

 middle, or end, of October till March, Seals used to be observed, 

 and occasionally captured, almost every season. For a good 

 many years past Seals have become much more infrei:[uent. 



The Red Deer {Cervus e/aphas, Linn.). 



" The range of the Red Deer, formerly extending over all 

 our province and much farther south, is now far to the north- 

 ward." So said Sir William Jardine in an address delivered here 

 in 1860. According to the writer of the "Statistical Account" 

 of Moffat parish, " the last hart was killed tliere in 1754, having- 

 been long single." The range betwixt Dumfriesshire and Lanark- 

 ■shire was, as m.ay easily be supposed, a famous place for deer. 

 In the ballad of " John of Breadislee '' we read that the redoubt- 



.able borderer 



. . . has gone to Durisdeer 

 To hunt the dun deer doAvn. 



A stag was killed at Eaglesfield, in Dumfriesshire, on 2oth October, 

 1815, a Mr Clark, of Broughton, having been gored and killed by 

 it. It had been hunted from Dalemain, near Penrith, through 

 ■Carlisle and Cockermouth and far across the borders. In Symson's 

 '• Galloway " (1684) there are some references to the presence of 

 ■" very large red deer" about the "remote parts of that great 



