Mr Harvie-Brotvn on the Squirrel in Great Britain. 151 



the Forest of Athole, by Glen Tilt, and Pol Tarff, and 

 down the Bynack AVater. By this route there are fully ten 

 miles of open moor between Forest Lodge, and near to Linn 

 of Dee. The next route is by Glenshee, and this appears 

 to be a feasible route, as the distance of open moor is con- 

 siderably less. In Glenshee, the furthest wood is not quite 

 so far up as the Spittall of Glenshee, and between that and 

 the woods on the north side, about twelve miles intervene of 

 moorland road 1200 feet above the sea.* Another advance is 

 by Glen Isla, on the Forfar side, into the same valley on the 

 Aberdeenshire side, by a pass of about the same height, but 

 with a longer stretch of moorland. The next line of advance 

 is by Glen Clova, descending into Glen Muick ; the next by 

 Glen Esk into Glen Tanar ; and the last — and most easterly — 

 along the lower wooded country of Kincardine descending 

 into Glen Dye, or spreading more widely over the foothills 

 through Kincardine into Aberdeenshire. 



Perhaps, nowhere in Scotland do the pine forests reach so 

 far up the glens and along the hill sides, or attain such an 

 elevation as they do in Aberdeenshire, even at the present 

 day; and as already seen under ''Early Chapters," we 

 have abundant evidence of what a richly clothed valley the 

 Dee must once have been. 



I will now proceed to record all that I can gather regarding 

 the early appearance of the squirrel in Aberdeenshire. 



I have in the meantime refused to credit their appearance 

 so early as 1853,-1- i^ "^^ absence of distinct data, and wdth 

 Macgillivray's observations as a guide (see Part \\.,antm, p. 49). 



I am again obliged to Mr George Sim for the following re- 

 marks. He writes : " It is now (1879) much more widely dis- 

 tributed over the country than it was twelve or lifteen years ago 

 (say 1864). At that time it was confined to the upper parts of 

 Dee and Don. \ In the Aberdeen Herald of Jan. 20th, 1873, 



* The squirrel is known to occur at an altitude of 1400 feet in Aberdeen 

 (Dr Dickie's "Botanist's Guide to Aberdeen, Banff, and Kincardine," 1860), 

 and perhaps at even greater altitudes. 



+ In the "New Statistical Account" of Aberdeen the squirrel is not once 

 mentioned. 



+ I cannot obtain any satisfactory evidence of its occurrence at so early a 

 date on Don. 



