The Mammalian Fauna of the Edinburgh District. 143 
Nature of the British Islands,” would have us understand 
that in his young days it was very scarce on the Loch Lomond 
hills. In 1822 he “had shot over the whole rugged ground 
at the head of Loch Lomond without moving a single blue 
hare, barring the hermit on Ben Voirla’s crags.” It is in- 
cluded, however, in an excellent list of the animals of the 
parish of Luss, written nearly thirty years before the above 
date (“ Old Statistical Account,” xvii., p. 247). Farther east 
I observed one—still very white—in the third week of April 
1891 ona high ridge of the Ochils above Tillicoultry, and 
learned from a shepherd that the species is fairly numerous 
on that range. 
South of the Forth it is abundant on most of the higher 
parts of the uplands from Lanarkshire through Peeblesshire 
to Selkirkshire, and extends along the Pentlands well into 
Midlothian. I believe there are some now on the Moorfoots 
also, but I have not yet had any indications of its existence 
on the Lammermoors, though I have made a number of 
inquiries on the point. It is generally understood that we 
owe their presence on the southern uplands entirely to the 
action of a few of the hill proprietors, by whom they have 
been introduced at different times within the last fifty to sixty 
years. Alston dates its existence in the south of Scotland 
from about 1860, but this is much too recent, as the follow- 
ing extracts show. In Chambers’s “History of Peebles- 
shire,” published in 1864, the following interesting passage 
occurs at page 525 :—“ The Variable or Alpine Hare is now 
not unfrequent on the hills, but is known to have been intro- 
duced from the north by the late Mr Clason of Hallyards 
about seventeen or eighteen years ago. The first of the 
species in Peeblesshire were set free by Mr Clason on one of 
the highest hills in the parish of Manor. The species seems 
now to be fully established and naturalised over a very con- 
siderable district, extending many miles from the original 
spot.” It would appear, however, to have been known in 
Manor a number of years before the date here assigned, as it 
is included in a list of the quadrupeds of the parish published 
in the “ New Statistical Account” in 1834, An extract from 
one of Mr Alston’s note-books, published in the Proceedings 
