116 Proceedings of the Royal Fhysical Society. 



1767, and probably between that date and 1772, or 1778 * 

 Mr Dunn writes to me as follows : 



" I have consulted everybody about here [i.e., at Dalkeith], 

 from His Grace downwards, who are likely to know anything 

 about the matter, and the general opinion of those who know 

 best is, that the squirrel must have been introduced to the 

 menagerie here early in the 17-' seventies/ ... I think 



* A writer in the Farmer's Magazine (1802), vol. iii., p. 447, informs us 

 that it was not known in the Lothians of Scotland till within the last thirty 

 years (say 1772), when it was said to have been introduced by the "bene- 

 volent Duchess of Buccleuch." The general belief at the present day, in 

 the neighbourhood of Dalkeith, is that " Elizabeth, Duchess of Buccleuch, 

 the present Duke's grandmother, " introduced the squirrel to the menagerie 

 then kept in the park, " about 100 years ago " (say 1778) ; and Mr Malcolm 

 Dunn, of Dalkeith Gardens, informs me that this is probably correct, as 

 the menagerie was established by " Duke Henry " (her husband) soon after 

 his marriage (in 1767), and after he had settled at Dalkeith. A corre- 

 spondent — J. Mitchell, Esq. of Morepark, a native of Dalkeith — tells me 

 (m lit, Jan. 8, 1879) that — "When a boy, eighty-five years ago, and then 

 seven years of age, and when going through the woods around Dalkeith, 

 the squirrel was quite a common sight ;" and adds — " it did not excite my 

 surprise, as if it had been newly introduced." This date would therefore be 

 fixed at 1794. The "Old Statistical Account of Scotland" bears evidence 

 of its comparative abundance, and of its subsequent increase and extension 

 of range in the county, and elsewhere, at that date (1791 to 1795), as will be 

 seen further on in the text. 



We must put aside as confessedly imperfect — and consequently inaccurate 

 — the evidence of the Earl of Home, who, writing in 1868 to Mr Tate, 

 says: "I cannot tell the j^ear, but to the best of my recollection, it was 

 more than sixty-six years ago " {vide Tate on the Squirrel, Proc. Berw. Nat. 

 Club, 1868, p. 441), which, taking sixty -six years previous, would put the 

 date of introduction as late as 1802 {vide text under 1802, p. 117). Nor can 

 we accept his repetition of the same statement as recorded by Mr Knox when 

 writing in 1872 ("Autumns on the Spey," 1872), that "squirrels were 

 unknown there seventy years ago," again assigning 1802 as the date of intro- 

 duction. I think we have abundant testimony — published and otherwise — 

 to show that it must have taken place at a very much earlier date. That the 

 memory of — or rather the importance of the fact of — its introduction must 

 have passed away by the year 1845, is perhaps partially shown by all absence 

 of record of it in the "New Statistical Account" of Edinburgh or Mid-Lothian 

 (vol. i.). Fleming, writing in 1819, tells us : " The squirrel is common in the 

 wooded districts of the middle and south of Scotland ;" but curiously, he 

 makes no mention of the introduction at Dalkeith, although several contem- 

 porary writers do so, as we have shown above {vide Constable's Edinburgh 

 Magazine, iv., p. 507, June 1819). Note. — There appear to be three articles 

 on Scottish zoology by Professor Fleming in the Edinburgh Magazine, viz. , in 

 numbers for May 1818 and June 1819. 



