THE RARER ANIMALS OF SCOTLAND. 163 
trapped or killed on the Dunglass Estate (which includes Pease- 
dean, Oldcambus, Dowlaw, &c.) during the present gamekeeper’s 
time, and he has been in the situation thirty years (say since 1850). 
My recollection of them goes back to 1830 at least.” Could such 
exact statistics as the above be obtained from every county in 
Scotland, our history of the Polecat would indeed be very 
complete. 
_Roxburgh.—In the same way it has become scarcer in Rox- 
burgh, and people speak of their experiences of the animal as 
dating pretty far back. Thus Mr. Smail, “many years ago,” 
found an abode of 2 Polecat in a dyke near the Doorpool Rookery. 
“Tt was shaped,” he writes, “like a flattish nest in the centre of 
the old ‘dry-stane’ wall, the nest or den being made of grass.” 
It contained one young one, but the adults were not to be found. 
They escaped by moving along the holes in the old wall. Ata 
meeting of the Berwickshire Naturalists’ Field Club, in 1880, at 
Gilsland, Naworth, and Lowercost, Mr. James Hardy discovered 
the remains (feet and tail) of a Polecat nailed to the door of the 
Vicarage at Lowercost, in Cumberland. At the time this led to 
a story by Mr. Turnbull, postmaster at Lilliesleaf, Roxburghshire, 
of his having seen a Polecat at Riddell, near that place. About 
twenty-five years ago (say 1855) a number of Polecats were killed 
near Kelso, but Mr. Brotherstone, of Kelso, seems inclined to put 
their extinction at an earlier date by five years (say 1850). In 
1878 Mr. Turnbull, of Lilliesleaf, saw a Polecat run down and 
kill a rabbit in a field near Riddell, on the River Ale, at which 
locality a rabbit-catcher, still alive, informed Mr. Hardy, of Old 
Cambus, that he used to kill many when a boy. In the Jed 
Valley it is now not so frequent as formerly, principally owing to 
the trapping of rabbits. The last seen by my correspondent 
(Mr. Yair) was got at Langlee, near Jedburgh, about twenty-three 
years ago (say 1857). In Liddesdale one was caught in the winter 
of 1879-80. 
Dumfries.—At one time the skins were sold at the Dumfries 
fairs in considerable numbers, but Dr. Grierson has not heard of 
one being taken for at least fifteen years (say since 1865). There 
are some fine specimens in his museum at Thornhill, all obtained 
more than fifteen years ago (say prior to 1865). The last specimen 
remembered by Sir Alexander Jardine, Bart., as he informed me, 
was probably about 1840. About 1853, however, Mr. Nichol Kerr, 
