136 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



of wood, according to my informant.* Mr William Eennie, 

 Tipit Craig, was born in 1793, and he never remembers the 

 squirrel as absent from the south of the county. Smidy Hill, 

 where he was born, is in the parish of Kilsyth. In 1809, 

 squirrels were plentiful at Burnhouse, in Skiperton Glen, and 

 Castlecary woods. Mrs Spiers says her father used to tell 

 the family at home that he saw a squirrel on a piece of 

 wood crossing the Forth and Clyde Canal towards the north.i* 

 Burnhouse is in Falkirk parish, and Bendomina, Mr Spiers' 

 father's farm, is iu the parish of Cumbernauld, in the isolated 

 portion of Dumbartonshire. I am particularly indebted to 

 Mr David Cram, Bonnybridge, for assistance in the above, 

 and much other information he has collected. Others like- 

 wise testify to their abundance seventy years ago in the south 

 of Stirlingshire. 



I have evidence of the occurrence of the squirrel at Duni- 

 pace as early as 1822, and my father shot one there in 1835. 

 Westward they did not reach Campsie till 1827, and had 

 populated that district by 1842. J Thus the Dalkeith army 

 had reached Campsie about the same time that the Minto army 

 was being marshalled, and this date, as will be seen, serves 

 for a stepping-stone to West Dumbartonshire, and Killearn 

 parish, in the west of Stirlingshire, where they first appeared 

 in 1830. Here the apparition caused much excitement at 

 the time, as I am informed by Mr Blackburn of Killearn. 



Northwards they had reached to the confines of the county 

 and penetrated to Kincardine parish, in the south of Perth- 

 shire, by about 1821 (see under South Perthshire, infra, p. 

 138), from the Dalkeith and Minto Centres. We then find 

 that Buchanan parish, in the north-west of the county, was 

 reached in 1830.§ A correspondent writes to me : " When I 

 came to live at Plean" [which is between Denny and Stirling, 

 — J. A. H. B.] "in 1828, squirrels were not very numerous. 



* I have heard the same related several times by others as actuallj'^ hajjpen- 

 ing at the present time, but no instances can be said to be authentic. 



t See further on p. 169. 



X "New Stat. Acct.," Stirlingshire (1842), p. 238. The writer saj's : *' Are 

 now abundant. Thej' were first observed in this district about fifteen j^ears 

 ago" — i.e., about 1827. 



§ "New Stat. Acct.," Stirlingshire (1842), p. 91. 



