40 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



We know that at the present time squirrels migrate from 

 the higher, more exposed, and smaller woods and coppices, to 

 the lower, more sheltered, and larger coverts, on the approach 

 of severe weather. 



All our earlier authors on Scottish natural history are silent 

 as regards the species occurring in the south of Scotland. 

 Sibbald wrote in 1684, but only mentions the species as 

 occurring " in meridionalis Plagse Scotise Sylvis." 



Sir Eobert Gordon also mentions them at a still earlier 

 date — 1630 — as inhabiting Sutherlandshire ;* but we can 

 find no authorities for its occurring in the south of Scotland 

 beyond the two vague records — already alluded to — of the 

 authors of the " New Statistical Account." 



The first mention of the species, even by its Gaelic name, 

 dates about the middle of the seventeenth century.-f- 



I cannot find any earlier record of their skins becoming 

 fashionable as articles of dress than those quoted above from 

 the Chamberlain Bolls of 1328. 



This is, no doubt, a curious blank in the animal's family 

 records ; but, as I will proceed to point out, is not perliaps 

 so very difficult to account for as at first sight may appear. 

 Our only records, vague and uncertain as they are, and, for 

 reasons already shown, not of great value in tracing the earlier 

 movements of the species, still point, by their localisation, to 

 a northward migration along the coast lines, at a period when 

 the interior of the country presented a less genial climate, 

 and when the northern parts of Great Britain were still 

 " struggling into a warmer state of existence," and escaping 

 from a sub-arctic into a more temperate climate. 



The only conclusion we can arrive at is, that if ever in- 

 digenous to the south of Scotland, the squirrel must have 

 disappeared from it at a very early period, advancing north- 

 ward to the shelter of the denser forests north of the Firths 

 of Forth and Clyde. 



It is, perhaps, not insignificant in this connection to note 

 the local migrations of the species, which, without doubt, 

 took place during the severe winter of 1878-79. They 



* " Hist, of Earldom of Sutherland," 1630. 



i Vide "■ The Lament for Macgregor of Ruaro." 



