160 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



like manner to populate lesser areas, and areas of similar 

 magnitude with one another; and the still more recent 

 restoration in Ayrshire ought, on the same principle, to 

 populate a still smaller area than any of the above. If we, 

 therefore, refused to credit Beaufort Castle with any share in 

 populating any of the country east of Inverness, and added 

 that to the Eothiemurchus area, the above condition of things 

 would be more nearly carried out. Yet it is extremely diffi- 

 cult to lay aside the data which I will give under the . Beau- 

 fort Centre. I feel bound to admit that my opinions, after 

 going carefully over the evidence, weigh almost equally for 

 either side of the question. 



Whether the dispersal from Eothiemurchus also reaches as 

 far east as the heads of Don, and there mingles with the ad- 

 vancing armies from Dee and up the Don, I cannot say ; but I 

 have not succeeded in obtaining any information from Upper 

 Donside which would lead me to think that it had. 



Beaufort Castle Centre. 



Of the former distribution and resuscitation of the squirrel 

 in this county, I have treated as fully as I am able with the 

 materials in hand. It now remains to record its restoration 

 to the northern parts, and follow its tracks outward from 

 Beaufort Castle Centre until, towards the east, they meet with 

 the northern extension of the Eothiemurchus indigenous 

 army, and towards the north, they reach into Sutherland in 

 1869. 



They were introduced at Beaufort Castle in 1844. The 

 Eev. George Gordon, writing in Knox's " Autumns on the 

 Spey," says : " Squirrels, which now (1872) abound on both 

 sides of the Moray Firth, were introduced into this district of 

 Scotland in 1844, when Lady Lovat turned out a few at 

 Beaufort Castle west of Inverness."* Mr Gordon has since 

 seen no reason to alter his opinion that Beaufort has been the 

 centre of restoration of the Nairn and Elgin squirrels.f 



In 1845 they had not yet reached into Kiltarlity parish, J but 

 in 1848 Mr Archibald Hepburn found them common in many 



* "Autumns on the Spey," p. 50. t In lit. 



X "New Stat. Acct.," Inverness-shire, p. 493. 



