J/r ffarvie-Brown on the Squirrel in Great Britain. 153 



about fifteen or sixteen years ago — say 1863. The first seen 

 in Invercauld was in 1864 :* it was shot by John M'Hardy, 

 and was given to Dr Marshall for the purpose of stuffing. 

 It is true that one of the very oldest natives of this place 

 — Mr John Lamont, long forester upon the Invercauld pro- 

 perty — informs me that squirrels were seen in the woods 

 about Clunie and Mar Lodge in 1858, — ' the year/ he adds, 

 * the new Bridge of Dee was built.'" A gamekeeper — a keen 

 observer — informs me that he saw one — the first he had ever 

 seen — near " The Lion's Face," in 1862. The old man Lamont, 

 to whom I have referred, says, that during his professional 

 duties as forester in the Blelloch and Cromar woods, he had 

 seen squirrels some years previous to 1858 ; also in the Birk- 

 hall woods, Glen Muick. It may be safely asserted that pre- 

 vious to 1862, no squirrels have been seen on the upper 

 reaches of the Dee, and while almost all are agreed as to the 

 time of the first appearance of the squirrel, all are also pretty 

 equally agreed that the line of advance was up the Dee. As 

 will be seen, this on the whole agrees with the evidence given 

 me by Mr Milne from Glen Tanar, and the opinion expressed 

 by him that they came up the Dee. My own belief is that 

 they entered Aberdeen via Kincardine, the same route by 

 which capercaillies arrived,-)- and that others reached in at 

 Glens Tanar and Muick, and that thence they spread loth up 

 and doivn the valley of the Dee. There seems to me nothing 

 improbable in their reaching over even by the direct route 

 from Athole to Braemar, beyond the fact that, by the date of 

 1844, they had reached Brechin in Lorfar, and from Brechin 

 would, at that time, find a continuously-wooded avenue of 

 approach into Aberdeen via Kincardine, which they would 

 not find via Glen Tilt, or via Glenshee. By this, I do not 

 mean to say that mountains will deter them, but I certainly 

 believe that they wiU not cross deserts if they find more suit- 



* But Mr Milne says they appeared "in the woods of Invercauld in the 

 year 1857, and very soon after, at Old Mar Lodge, near the Linn of Dee ;' 

 and Mr George Sim was accustomed to see them commonly in 1859 and 

 1860 in all the woods between Aboyne and Invercauld. 



t Vide "The Capercaillie in Scotland," by the author, pp. 94-97. Douglas, 

 Edin., 1879. Also Appendix to same ("Scottish Naturalist," July 1880, p. 5). 



