328 APPENDIX. 



the county. 065. The Red Field Vole A. glareolus has not been to 

 our knowledge discovered in the county. 



Mountain Hare Lepus variabilis (Pallas). 



The White Hare has been gradually decreasing in numbers for some years 

 back. There are no hills in Assynt at all famous for the numbers of 

 these creatures, but there is no doubt that they were much more 

 plentiful only some sixteen or twenty years ago, and within pur own 

 recollection, than they are now. Persistent shooting has in some 

 cases had to answer for this scarcity. At one time the two Bens 

 Griam were plentifully supplied with hares, but some thousands hav- 

 ing been killed off these hills alone some years back, the stock never 

 recovered, and even now, when there is no systematic persecution, 

 they are so rare that not more than two or three can be seen in a 

 day's walk. Since the larger shootings were broken up in 1873, each 

 lessee has, in most cases, allowed his keeper to kill hares in the winter, 

 and as hares generally come down from the higher grounds at that 

 time, far more were killed than belonged by rights to the ground ; and 

 as this has now been going on for more than two years, and during 

 that time we have had two very severe seasons, it is no wonder that 

 White Hares are getting scarce. 



Common Hare Lepus timidus L. 



The Brown Hare, as it is called in the Highlands, is pretty plentiful in 

 the east of the county, frequenting indifferently the cultivated land 

 and the heather that borders it. When living in the latter place, it is 

 supposed to cross with L. variabilis, and certainly we have seen hares 

 that had every appearance of being such hybrids. 



Said to have been common in the lower lands and the limestone 

 ranges of Assynt in Selby's time. It is now extremely rare, if not 

 extinct there. We have only seen two examples during seventeen years' 

 knowledge of Assynt, and these both on the same day. 



Rabbit Lepus cuniculus L. 



Common in the east. Scarce in the west, or at least very local. Com- 

 mon on Handa, where they were introduced about eighteen to twenty 

 years ago. Fairly common about the north shore of Loch Inrer; 

 abounding on Rabbit Island (or Eilean-nan-Ghael, the Island of 

 Strangers), at the entrance of the Kyle of Tongue, but temporarily 

 decreased there since the severe winters of late years. Old " Robby 

 Ross," an old residenter at Tongue, told Mr. Crawford that Rabbits 

 were introduced to Eilean-nan-Ghael by Major M'Kay, brother to Lord 

 Reay, about seventy years ago. We find this island, however, called 

 "Rabbit Island" as early as 1792 in the Old Stat. Acct. of the Comty, 

 vol. iii. p. 521. 700 were killed in the Tongue woods in 1880-1881. A 

 single Rabbit was known to frequent stony broken ground at Farout 

 Head, near Durness, in 1881-1882. How did it come there? Over 

 12,500 are stated to have been killed in the county of Sutherland in 

 the year 1880, but this return does not probably apply really to the 

 whole county. Rabbits wander far up the straths on the east coast, 

 and at one time there was a large colony near Loch Aricline, at the 

 head of the Helmsdale Strath, which were nearly all killed by one 

 severe winter. 



Eed-Deer Cervus elephus L. 



It is stated that 284 stags and 32 hinds were killed in 1880 in the count/. 

 How far these figures are correct I am unable to say. 



The principal forests are Dirrie-Chatt or Dunrobin in the east, and. 

 Dirrie-More or Reay Forest in the west, besides, of later years, other 

 afforested ground in Assynt. There is evidence that formerly very 

 large heads occurred in Sutherland (Lays of the Deer Forest, vol. ii. p. 

 145), and the Dunrobin Museum contains a very fine head, with both 



