INTRODUCTORY 11 



are the same as in the neighbouring parishes, hares, rabbits, 

 foxes, badgers, otters, foumarts, or polecats. The braes on 

 the north-east side of Cambuswallace House have been long 

 a receptacle for badgers and foxes ; but these mischievous 

 animals are now much banished " (vol. xx., p. 49). 



ALLOA (CLACKMANNAN). " The wild animals are the same 

 as are common to all the Low Country : hares, rabbits, foxes, 

 badgers, otters, foumarts, or polecats, and stoats, or ermines. 

 These last are very rare. There are no wild cats" (vol. viii., 

 p. 645). 



TILLICOULTRY (CLACKMANNAN). "The wild quadrupeds 

 are hares, rabbits, foxes, hedge-hogs, weasels, polecats, badgers, 

 and otters" (vol. xv., p. 200). 



FOSSAWAY AND TULLIEBOLE (PERTH AND KINROSS). " Of 



quadrupeds, there are foxes, badgers, otters, polecats, hares, 

 and rabbits " (vol. xviii., p. 466). 



CASTLETOWN (ROXBURGH). "The wild quadrupeds are 

 foxes, hares, wild cats, polecats, weasels, the white weasel, often 

 seen in winter, hedgehogs, and Norway rats " (xvi., p. 76). 



Many -of the terrestrial species mentioned in the following 

 pages have doubtless been inhabitants of the district from a 

 remote antiquity. The naturalist, therefore (and I feel sure 

 the sportsman too, if he would but allow himself to look at 

 the matter in all its aspects), cannot contemplate without 

 feelings of regret the extermination of such animals as the 

 Wild Cat, the Marten, the Polecat, and the Badger, whose 

 ancestors were the contemporaries of the Bear, the Wolf, the 

 Wild Boar, and the Beaver, and in all probability inhabited 

 the district while extinct Deer and Oxen, and maybe even 

 the gigantic Mammoth, still lingered on its soil. 1 



1 Evidence of the former existence of the Bear, the Wolf, and the Wild 

 Boar, even within historic times, is not wanting ; and remains of the Wolf 

 have been found on the Pentland Hills above Dreghorn ; of the Beaver at 



