Mr Harvie-Broicn on the Sqiiirrel in Great Britain. 127 



want of sufficient shelter, and scarcity of wood. A nest con- 

 taining young was found at Mabie, which were probably de- 

 scendants of the South wick squirrels, as Mabie is ten miles 

 from Southwick in a direct line, and Mabie is a locality in 

 Kirkcudbright, about five miles south-west of Dumfries, and 

 until the last ten years densely wooded. 



These appear to be the only items we can glean of its 

 appearance there until a very much later date. All the old 

 people consulted by Mr Service — to whom I am entirely 

 indebted for all data from the south-west of Scotland — do not 

 remember ever seeing squirrels until within the last sixteen 

 to twenty years. Mr John Heysham, M.D., of Carlisle, in 

 " A Catalogue of Cumberland Animals," contained in " The 

 History of the County of Cumberland " (1794), says : " The 

 squirrel : this is a lively, active, and provident animal, but 

 not very frequent, except in the neighbourhood of the 

 lakes. In Cumberland and Westmoreland they are called 

 conns!' This shows their rarity in the north of England and 

 south of Scotland at that date. 



Mr Service says further : ''I have no doubt that the 

 Dumfriesshire squirrels [i.e., of the present time], though 

 supplemented by introductions, had their origin in Cumber- 

 land. They have increased much more rapidly than they 

 could possibly have done were the several introductions the 

 first of the race." I quite agree here with Mr Service, and I 

 think the following data collected by him go to prove that 

 Dumfriesshire and Kirkcudbrightshire owe their squirrel 

 population to the combined dispersal naturally from the north 

 of England, alonsj with that from several small introductions. 



However, in the south of Dumfries, Mr James Telford 

 gives evidence of their appearing in Canobie parish, in 1837, 

 in Liddleside. They then increased rapidly until last spring 

 [1879], when they suffered sadly from the storms of winter, 

 and a great many died. Mr Telford adds that a man in 

 Langholm parish relates that he had hunted squirrels in Dean 

 Banks about 1833. Another correspondent of Mr Service's 

 puts the date much later for Canobie, and says that it was not 

 till 1847 ; but of course we must accept the earlier positive 

 date. It is quite the general impression that they came from 



