THE RARER ANIMALS OF SCOTLAND. 9 
news connected with the chase, or with Foxes, Cats, or other 
vermin.* JI have taken considerable care to include as many 
available districts as possible, and have been most careful and 
minute in my inquiries in these parts where the animals have 
become extinct, because I have deemed it desirable to record 
such minutie so long as they are available; but where there is 
no immediate prospect of the different species becoming extinct 
I have thought it better to withhold my information for the 
present lest, by publishing it, the extinction which we deplore may 
be hastened. 
Generally throughout my work I have been greatly assisted by 
many kind friends and correspondents in all parts of the country, 
who have always cheerfully replied to my enquiries, and it has 
been a pleasure to me to observe that an increasing interest is 
being taken in the natural history of our indigenous animals. 
I cannot now express more fully my sense of indebtedness to 
them, but may entertain the hope that they will continue to favour 
me with their communications. 
In my treatment of the subject I have been obliged to condense 
the material I received as much as possible, and have therefore 
seldom given my direct authorities for the statements in the text ; 
but when I say that every item of information, with exact, or 
approximate, dates, is carefully preserved in extenso in my note- 
books, and that each party who has supplied information will, 
upon reading this paper, be able to identify those items which 
he has himself supplied, I think enough is said as regards the 
authenticity of the statistics. At the same time I have in many 
cases taken pains to verify the accounts which have reached me, 
and I have included none which I have had good reason to doubt, 
or which appeared to me to be incomplete. 
The Wild Cat, Felis catus, has never been a native of the 
Islands of Scotland, if we may judge from its entire absence from 
them at the present time, as well as that of certain other mammals, 
the early arrival of which, along with the present species, appears 
to have taken place at a comparatively recent date, namely, since 
* Thus a single individual—we will say a forester on a great deer forest, 
such as Athole or Breadalbane—in most cases is able to tell exactly or 
approximately the date of the last one killed, not only on his own beat, but 
- perhaps on the beats of all his brother foresters and keepers for miles 
around. 
Cc 
