Mr Harvie-Broiun on the, Squirrel i7i Great Britain. 37 



of Cumberland" (1794), says, tliey " are not common except 

 in the neighbourhood of the lakes; " but they are now (1879) 

 common everywhere in the county. 



Eeturning to Scotland, we find in the " New Stat. Acct." 

 of Berwickshire, the statement, that " the red squirrel is 

 also said to have been at one time a denizen of Dunglass 

 woods in Cockburnspath Parish,* which is the northernmost 

 parish in the county. Again, we are told, that "amongst 

 the animals which have disappeared " from Hounam Parish 

 in Eoxburghshire — which parish lies close to the base of the 

 Cheviots — " are Lutra vulgaris and Sciurus vulgaris ;" -f but 

 when we come to search for other records upon which these 

 could have been based, we find nothing of sufficient reliability 

 to be forthcoming. 



It certainly is curious to find so little of positive evidence 

 of its occurrence recorded. Mr Tate, who has already given 

 us a paper upon the species,| considers it doubtful " whether 

 squirrels are indigenous to the Borders, or existed there in 

 former times. There is not," he says, " sufficient evidence 

 that they were exterminated, although the climate is evi- 

 dently not unsuited to them ; and it is possible that the 

 extensive destruction of forests and woods, from the period 

 of the Norman Conquest till the accession of James I. to the 

 English throne, may have caused extirpation of the original 

 breed." Mr Tate believes " that there is not evidence 

 upon the grounds, that, although the skins of squirrels, as 

 well as of cats, foxes, hares, rabbits, kids, lambs, were articles 

 of commerce in the district in 1377, when, according to a 

 charter for pontage, one hundred of them — i.e., squirrels — 

 was charged a toll of one halfpenny on passing over Alnwick 

 Bridge;" still, he says, "such skins may not have been 

 grown in the district;" and I think it can be shown that 

 he has very good ground, indeed, for his expressed doubt, at 

 least as regards the squirrels' skins ;§ because, in the accounts 



* Op. ciL, Berwickshire, p. 299 (1841). 

 + Op. ciL, Roxburghshire, p. 4 (1841). 

 t Proc. Berw. N. Club., 1863-68, vol. i., p. 440. 



§ The following is an extract from "Folio Scots Acts," vol. i., p. 667 

 (new pagination), being export duties levied in the time of King David, 



