36 Proceedings of the Uoyal Physical Society. 



trades token, it appears that in the seventeenth century 

 there was a similar sign in Fleet Street. Probably it was 

 the same house which was occupied by Gosling, the banker, 

 " over against Dunstan Church," where the triad of squirrels 

 may still be seen in the ironwork of the window. Goslings 

 and Sharpe still have three squirrels engraved on their 

 cheques. " Cages with climbing squirrels and bells to them 

 were formerly the indispensable appendages of the outside 

 of a tinman's shop, and were, in fact, the only live sign. 

 One, we believe, still (1826) hangs out on Holborn; but 

 they are fast vanishing with the good old modes of our 

 ancestors." 



The surname Squirrel, Mr Bidwell — who has paid much 

 attention to place, and surnames in connection with animals 

 — considers, has arisen from having been used as a heraldic 

 badge. " It is so common a name " {i.e., in the south-east of 

 England and the eastern counties, — J. A. H. B.), " that I think 

 it must have arisen from several centres." 



Our evidence of their prior existence at localities any- 

 where in Scotland south of the old Caledonian forest, or, at 

 at all events, south of the Firths of Forth and Clyde, rests 

 upon very scanty materials. The use of the word Con, though 

 admitted by Scottish authors, has every appearance of being 

 a word introduced from South Cumberland, otherwise it 

 seems difficult to account for the large extent of intermediate 

 country where the name is not known in the novth of Cum- 

 berland. 



HISTORICAL EVIDENCE IN SCOTLAND. 



There is very general silence regarding the species in old 

 family and other records, both in Cumberland and in south 

 of Scotland. It is not mentioned in Lord W. Howard's 

 " Household " Books, just published by the Surtees Society 

 — tempore Queen Elizabeth, — nor is there mention made of 

 it by De Vallibus, Baron of Gilsland, amongst tithes given 

 to the " Canons of Lanerwit," as I am informed by Mr Rich*^. 

 S. Ferguson {in lit. 26, iii. 79). Mr Ferguson also tells me 

 that he knows of no documentary evidence relating to squir- 

 rels in mediaeval times. Heysham, in Hutchinson's " History 



