Mr HaTvie-Brovjn on the Squirrel in Great Britain. 47 



speaks of squirrels, as if he were familiar with them, in a 

 satirical poem on a tailor that had offended him. Maclntyre 

 died in 1812. His poem on the tailor was composed long 

 before his death— say 1760 or 1780.'^ 



1790.— The " Old Statistical Account" records that, " The 

 squirrel is now become very rare, if not totally extinct, in 

 Lismore and Appin;" * but Dr Fleming, writing in 1819, in- 

 forms us that " squirrels were rare in Argyleshire, in these 

 woods where they had abounded some years before," referring 

 to about the same date — about thirty years previous, viz., 

 1790.t 



1812. — Their presence is still testified to at this date by 

 Professor Walker, who writes : " Habitat sylvis prsesertim 

 coryletis. In sylvse Lornse superioris, antehac copiose, nunc 

 rarior." J 



1809-19. — And the Kev. A. Stewart, Nether Lochaber, in- 

 forms me, that " an old man, only lately deceased, told me 

 that in his younger days — say sixty or seventy years ago 

 (1809-19), the squirrel was not uncommon in the woods 

 about Appin House." § 



1839. — The Eev. A, Stewart also writes to me, that 

 " about twenty-five years ago I saw more than once a 

 rudely-stuffed squirrel in the inn at Shean Ferry, then occu- 

 pied by one Ewen Cameron, who, I think, is still in life; 

 and this specimen was said to have been shot or captured 

 some ten or twelve years previously — say about forty years 

 ago (1839), in the woods about Appin House." 



In 1842, in the "New Statistical Account" of Argyleshire, 

 squirrels are spoken of as formerly existing and abounding, 

 " but now extinct." 



We have here excellent reason for believing, from the 

 chronological sequence of the -records, that the species lin- 

 gered till a very late period in Argyleshire. Indeed, so 

 closely related are the records of Dr Walker in 1802 — his 

 " nunc rarior " in the district of Lorn — with the " not un- 



* Op. ciL, vol. i., p. 487. 



+ Edinburgh Magazine, iv., p. 507, June 1819. 

 X "Essays on Nat. Hist.," 1812, p. 498. 

 § Tn lit. II Thid. 



