EFFECTS UPON ANIMAL LIFE 351 



The forest-loving beasts of prey, the Bear, the Wolf, 

 the Fox, the Wild Cat, the Pine Marten, the Polecat and 

 their like, as well as the inoffensive Badger and the Beaver, 

 must also have suffered in numbers and in range as their 

 haunts were demolished. More than once I have referred 

 to the deliberate destruction of woods for the purpose of 

 ridding the land of Wolves and lesser vermin ; but the 

 destruction of woodland from whatever cause must have 

 had the like effect of decreasing their numbers and driving 

 them to resorts further afield. 



THE COMMON SQUIRREL 



One other creature amongst mammals, deserves mention 

 on account of its vital connection with the forest the 

 Common Red Squirrel (Sciurusvulgaris). The refuse of the 

 prehistoric settlements affords no evidence of the presence 

 of the Squirrel in Scotland, nor would we expect to find 

 the remains of so small and shy a creature in these rude 

 accumulations. For even had they ever found their way to 

 the kitchen-midden, the liability of the small bones to 

 decay, and the rough and ready methods of collecting 

 animal remains which have too often characterized the older 

 excavations, place almost insuperable difficulties in the way 

 of their recovery. 



Yet I have no doubt that the Squirrel is an ancient 

 native of Scotland and that this "herald of forest conditions 

 all over the northern hemisphere," as Professor Osborn calls 

 it, accompanied the woodland fauna which migrated to Britain 

 from the Continent in the days succeeding the Ice Age. 



During long ages it held its ground throughout the 

 whole of Scotland. In the seventeenth century, Sir Robert 

 Sibbald, in his Scotia Illustrata (1684), records its presence 

 at one end of the country, in the woods of the southern 

 tract of Scotland. " In meridionalis Plagae Scotiae Sylvis 

 reperitur " ; and at other end, in the far north, Sir Robert 

 Gordon wrote in 1630 in his History of the Earldom of 

 Sutherland that 



All these forrests and Schases are verie profitable for the feeding of bestiall, 

 and delectable for hunting. They are full of reid deer and roes, woulffs, 

 foxes, wyld catts, brocks, skuyrells, whitrets, otters, martrixes, hares, and 

 fumarts. 



