52 AUTUMNS ON THE SPEY. 



appearance in Xairnshire, I recollect crossing the 

 hill between the glen of Holme and the Streens, 

 on the Findhorn. While on the top of the hare 

 hill, one of the men who were accompanying me, 

 but a little distance from me at the time, was 

 startled by his sheep-dog becoming very excited, 

 and barking at " a queer wee beastie " among the 

 heather. The beastie, to avoid its persecutor, 

 and seeing no other place of refuge in that tree- 

 less region, at once made for the man himself, 

 and at one bound gained the crown of his bonnet, 

 to the poor fellow's sad discomfiture, for he 

 deemed himself assailed by something that was, 

 at least, " uncannie." ' Mr. Stables adds, 'The 

 fact of a squirrel being thus found on a bare 

 elevated moor, at least a couple of miles from the 

 nearest wood or tree, shows that it was in the act 

 of migration.' " 



Later in the autumn of the same year in 

 which I first heard this singular story of the 

 reappearance of the squirrel in the North of 

 Scotland, I was staying on a visit at The Hirsel in 

 Berwickshire, near Coldstream, and on mention- 

 ing it to Lord Home, he was much struck by the 

 account, and assured me that the restoration of 

 the same species to the South of Scotland had 

 been brought about in a manner precisely similar, 



