348 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



the squirrel may have obtained for that species, in early times, 

 an erroneous name. And this appears none the less probable 

 when we are aware of the fact that any amount of confusion, 

 as I can easily show, exists even at the present day in the 

 minds and conversation of country people in many parts of 

 Scotland as to what a squirrel really is. Even in Argyle- 

 shire itself I have myself heard a ferret called feorag, and in 

 Aberdeenshire squirrels are constantly brought to Mr George 

 Sim, the naturalist of that town, by uneducated country 

 people as " foumarts," " futterets," or " ferrets." 



It may well be asked, then, when did this awful confusion 

 begin, and to what animal was the name originally applied ? 

 Mr Macpherson assures me that the two derivations oi feorag 

 given above are the most likely, meaning " the little ques- 

 tioner," and " the wood or tree animal." 



In Scotland the marten is known by a distinctive Gaelic 

 name, but in Ireland, though the marten is widely recog- 

 nised, there are no names and no traditions now existing 

 regarding the indigenous squirrel amongst the peasantry or 

 older people of the country. As we will show further on 

 in our essay, an introduction of the squirrel certainly took 

 place in Ireland during the present century. 



All these materials are intended to bear upon the question, 

 — Did the squirrel extend its distribution into Ireland before 

 the separation of Ireland from the south-west of Scotland ? 

 or, in other words, Was the squirrel indigenous to Ireland, and 

 did it become extinct at an early period ? But the result is 

 still obscure. In a separate section of this essay I shall 

 speak of the " Squirrel in Ireland." 



{To he coiitmued) 



X. On an undescribed variety of Amethyst. By Professor 

 Duns, D.D., President. [Plate XIX.] 



(Read 21st April 1880.) 



The place of the amethyst in systematic mineralogy, its 

 chemical constituents, crystallographic form, the characters 

 of the species of which it is a variety, its colour, geognostic 

 situations, and geographic distribution are so well known, as 



