Mr Harvic-Broion on the Squirrel in Great Britain. ICl 



parts of the north of Inverness-shire,* and evidence of it in 

 Eoss-shire and Cromarty shows that it had travelled steadily 

 northward from the centre. But the richly cultivated, level, 

 and well-wooded country east of Inverness, and along the 

 south side of the Moray Firth, seemed to invite a more rapid 

 extension, as we find them arriving at the confines of the 

 county as early as 1851, and passing into 



Nairn 



" at Kilravock, and at Cawdor in 1855." By 1862, it became 

 necessary to destroy them on several estates, notwithstanding 

 which they appeared still to increase in numbers, if we judge 

 of the numbers killed at Cawdor plantations by shooting 

 alone. As pointed out, however, " the numbers killed depend 

 a good deal upon the qualifications of the men employed, and 

 on the price paid for each tail." "f Nor can we trust implicitly 

 such records, because, as Captain J. Dunbar-Brander of Pit- 

 gaveny assures me, '*on the estate of Cawdor many thousands 

 of tails were paid for, supposed to have been killed in the 

 district. One day the factor saw a buuch of squirrels' tails 

 arrive at the station addressed to one of the keepers ; a day or 

 two afterwards they were presented to be paid for." J 



Having passed through Nairn, still travelling eastwards, 

 "they spread so far into Elginshire in 1860 as to have been 

 observed at Birchfield in the Glen of Eothes." 



Banff and North Aberdeenshire. 



After their appearance at Kilravock (Nairn) and Cawdor, 

 " they were seen to move eastward to Forres in Elgin, and to 

 Gordon Castle, and other parts of Banftshire." They " crossed 

 the Spey a few years previous to 1872, and were met with on 

 the banks of the Doveran in the east of the county." § 



Mr George Sim, of Aberdeen, here takes up the thread with 



* "Zoologist," 1848, p. 2010. 



+ The above account of the squirrel in Nairn is taken almost entirely from 

 Knox's " Autumns on the Spey," p. 50, ei seq. 



X For list of squirrels killed in seventeen years at Cawdor see further on, 

 p. 175. 



§ Rev. G. Gordon in Knox's "Autumns on the Spey," p. 50. 



VOL. VI. L 



