118 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



directions in which the strongest waves press forward), we 

 find that in Peeblesshire they were " rather rare " in the 

 county in 1841,* though apparently believed to have come 

 from Dalkeith, at which place the introduction is noticed ; 

 and again of the parish of Newlands, which is one of the 

 parishes nearest to Mid-Lothian, we are told that — " within 

 thirty or forty years the brown squirrel has found its way 

 hither from Dalkeith."-|* The date of this volume of the 

 " New Stat, Account " being 1841, and putting the earliest 

 date at which the squirrel is by this account recorded as 

 reaching the north of Peeblesshire, we find it fixed at about 

 1801, by which time, as we have seen, it had populated most 

 of Mid and East Lothian,| showing the tardy advance in a 

 southerly direction, as compared with that in westerly and 

 easterly directions. 



Continuing our examination of districts southward of Dal- 

 keith, I do not consider that Dalkeith introduction exercised 

 much influence on the extension of range anywhere in a 

 south-easterly direction beyond the confines of the county ; 

 indeed, I am not at all clear that even within the county some 

 of the localities do not owe their population to the more 

 southerly introductions at Minto, and at The Haining, near 

 Selkirk. We find the statement, significant in its appropriate- 

 ness to our argument, that " squirrels have appeared (in 

 Galashiels parish), but do not seem to have gained a resi- 

 dence ; which, for the sake of game and singing birds, is little 

 desirable."§ Now, at that time (1841), there was no lack of 

 timber-clad ground in the parish of Galashiels itself, and later, 

 when the young plantations got up about Abbotsford, squirrels 

 began to be more abundant, as I am informed by Dr J. A. 

 Smith, on the authority of John Swanston — Sir Walter Scott's 

 forester and gamekeeper. There can be Little doubt that these 

 came from the south, either direct from the Minto Centre, or 

 resulted from a few which were sent to The Haining, near 

 Selkirk. || 



* "New Stat. Acct," Peebles, vol. i., p. 112. 



t Op. cit., "Peebles," vol. iii., p. 136. 



::: Op. cit., "Mid -Lothian," p. 161. § Ojj. cit., "Selkirk," p. 15. 



li See under Minto Centre, further on, p. 120. 



