ANIMALS INTRODUCED FOR AMENITY 295 



IN THE NORTHERN HIGHLANDS 



Beaufort Castle, on the Beauly River in Inverness-shire, 

 the last to be considered of the main centres of squirrel 

 dispersal in Scotland, was stocked by Lady Lovat in 1844. 

 Northwards the vagrants moved, settling and multiplying 

 as they went, so that in 1848 they were common in north- 

 ern Inverness-shire, and ten years later had invaded Ross 

 and Cromarty as far as Kilmuir Castle and Tarbat House 

 on the northern shore of the Cromarty Firth. In 1859 they 

 appeared in Sutherland, and were plentiful in the east of 

 the county in the 'seventies, an increase attributed by 

 Dr Harvie- Brown to the advantage taken by the Squirrels 

 of the Highland Railway Bridge built at Invershin in 1869. 

 It is probable that Squirrels would make use of this bridge 

 in moving across the river, but it seems to me that the 

 argument makes too much of the possibility of a stream 

 acting as a barrier. Squirrels are excellent and deliberate 

 swimmers. They have frequently been observed swimming 

 from one point to another across the fjords of Norway, and 

 in the Field of January 27, 1917, the distances of some 

 of their journeys are given the most striking example being 

 a direct swim of some 500 metres, about one-third of a 

 mile, which was made without break, notwithstanding that 

 there were two places on the way where the tiny navigator 

 could have rested had it wished. We can, therefore, hardly 

 regard the River Oykell as a serious barrier : the less so 

 when we take into account that it had already been crossed 

 for many years by Bonar Bridge, three miles down the river. 



So common and destructive did Squirrels become in 

 east Sutherland that, in the seven years between 1873 and 

 1880, 942 were killed at Dunrobin. In recent years the 

 increase of Squirrels in this area has been phenomenal, and 

 some account of the extraordinary numbers slain is given in 

 the discussion of the Squirrel as a pest (p. 181). 



The heights of Morven and the ranges of hills which form 

 the boundary between Sutherland and southern Caithness, 

 as well as the treelessness of the latter county, seem to have 

 stayed their northward progress, for as late as 1887, Squirrels 

 were unknown in Caithness, although they have since be- 

 come common in the Berriedale district. It is not surprising 



