The Mammalian Fauna of the Edinburgh District. 117 
Scott, which was the only example known there for half-a- 
century. It was stuffed by Walter Simson, Lauder. This 
furnishes us with four Berwickshire instances of the animal.” 
For the rest of the district I have practically nothing to 
add to what is recorded in Mr Harvie-Brown’s article on the 
species contributed to the Zoologist for 1881, p. 81. In 
the “Old Statistical Account” it is mentioned as occurring 
among the rocks on the Campsie Fells (vol. xv., p. 323), 
and in the neighbourhood of Callander (vol. xi, p. 598); and 
in 1838 MacGillivray described a specimen from Lanarkshire 
(“ British Quadrupeds,” p. 168). Since then examples have 
turned up unexpectedly in a number of places. Thus on 
10th May 1870 a very fine male, which I have the pleasure 
of exhibiting this evening on behalf of its owner, Mr Charles 
Cook, was caught in an ordinary rabbit-trap on the wooded 
slopes of the East Lomond hill, near Falkland, Fife; and in 
the summer of 1873 another male was trapped in the woods 
at Broomhall, near Dunfermline, in the same county, by Mr 
Stark, gamekeeper there, in whose hands I have recently 
seen it. In the beginning of June 1879, Dr A. C. Stark 
had an excellent view of one in the fir wood behind Callander, 
as he informed me shortly afterwards; and in February of 
the same year one was killed in Glenartney. In April 1880 
one which was killed in Balquhidder on the 2nd of the month, 
was exhibited at a meeting of this Society; and, though the 
fact does not bear directly on this paper, I may mention that 
one (a male) was caught on Urie estate, near Stonehaven, so 
recently as August 1888 (Scotsman, 1st September 1888). 
MUSTELA PUTORIUS Z. POLECAT OR FOUMART. 
Seldom have the processes of extermination worked more 
rapidly and effectually than in the present case. Formerly 
abundant and generally distributed in the district, the Polecat 
has for many years been practically extinct, even in the more 
outlying localities. From the day that. steel-traps came into 
vogue for the capture of the Rabbit, the fate of the Foleent 
in the lowlands was sealed. 
The frequency with which it is mentioned, without any, 
