158 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



took place into Inverness from Perthshire. Another writer 

 (or the same) in the Elgin Courant appears to be of this 

 opinion also. The passage is quoted in the " Scottish 

 Naturalist" (vol. i., p. 49), and I give it again here : 



" Squirrels, we believe, first appeared north of Spey some 

 twenty years ago " * [referring to the lower reaches of the 

 river, not to Badenoch or Strathspey, — J. A. H. B.]. " Writers 

 of Natural Histories, not so long ago as that, tell us that 

 squirrels were unknown in the north, and they certainly were 

 very few. Half a century has, however, elapsed since there 

 were squirrels in Eoxburghshire, into which a nobleman is 

 said to have introduced them, -f- In that county, as also in 

 Perthshire, they are now a great pest, and hunted down with- 

 out mercy. The squirrel is a creature known to have a pro- 

 pensity to migrate, persistently pursuing its course over river, 

 mountain, and moor. They came here from Perthshire, by 

 the way of Glen Truim, getting to the top of that glen, we 

 know not how, through the wilderness on both sides of Dal- 

 whinnie. At all events that was the route of the squirrel 

 invasion, for they made their first appearance amongst the 

 trees about Invereshie and Aviemore, and the woods of 

 Eothiemurchus. From Badenoch, or rather Strathspey, they 

 crossed into Nairn and Morayshire, and their multiplication 

 has been so rapid, that now scarcely a wood in the two 

 counties is free from their ravages. In the woods of Cawdor, 

 Darnaway, and Altyre, they were numerous fifteen years ago, 

 but it is not more than five years since they came to the 

 woods on Heldon Hill, and the Oak Wood, near Elgin. 

 From Elgin they have gone to the woods about Gordon Castle, 

 and the extensive plantations about CuUen House will soon 

 receive a visit from them." 



The above seems to be the view taken of the dispersal and 

 lines of advance by Captain Dunbar-Brander and others 

 (putting aside, as already disposed of, the erroneous source, 



* i.e., Twenty years previous to 1871 — 1870 being the date of vol. i., 

 "Scot. Nat." 



t Dalkeith introduction is no doubt intended. Squirrels did not appear in 

 Roxburgh till 1827, as has already been shown; or it is possible also that 

 Minto is intended, and that the date is not accurately given. 



