888 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
it did not become absolutely extinct in Scotland, but lingered in 
the old forest of Rothiemurcus until resuscitated by the new 
growth of suitable woods; that it remained in Argyleshire until 
the year 1839 or 1840, when the last of its race in that part of 
the country is said to have been killed; and that in Ross-shire it 
survived in the wooded glen of Ainaig until about the close of the 
last century. 
If ever indigenous to the South of Scotland, says Mr. Harvie 
Brown, the Squirrel must have disappeared from it at a very 
early period, advancing northwards to the shelter of the denser 
forests north of the Firths of Forth and Clyde; and in support 
of this view he comments on certain local migrations of this 
little animal which have been observed to take place during 
severe winters. 
As we proceed further north, however, and approach nearer 
to the southern limits of the old Caledonian forest ‘‘ circum- 
stances under which we must consider the prior distribution of 
the Squirrel entirely alter,” and Mr. Harvie Brown thinks there 
can be little doubt that the Squirrel was indigenous to nearly the 
whole mainland of Scotland north of the Firths of Forth and 
Clyde. Dealing with each county separately, he brings forward 
numerous items of information regarding the scarcity or other- 
wise of this little animal as observed at different dates, and 
furnishes many interesting particulars concerning its food and 
habits, and the damage caused to woods and plantations by its 
destructive propensity for bark and the tender shoots of growing 
trees. In one forest alone, that of Glen Tanar, in Aberdeenshire, 
in one year (1874) the Squirrels were said to have destroyed at 
least 1000 trees, occasioning a loss estimated at £500. In the 
Cawder plantations, where they were found to be very destructive, 
as many as 1100 or 1200 have been shot or trapped in a single 
year; while in seventeen years, between 1862 and 1878, no less 
than 14,123 were killed, for which, at the rate of threepence 
and fourpence a head, the sum of £213 odd was paid. These 
figures will give some idea of the immense amount of damage to 
plantations such an army of Squirrels would cause. 
The statistics which Mr. Harvie Brown has collected on the 
vexed question whether Squirrels prey on young birds and eggs 
prove conclusively that they do; not as a habit, however, but as 
an exception and an acquired taste. 
