618 Scientific Proceedings, Royal Dublin Society. 
gives also the dormouse in his list, an animal well known not to 
be a native of Ireland ; he, therefore, is not reliable. 
We now come to the first list of Irish mammals by a competent 
naturalist, and find that the squirrel is not mentioned by the 
well-known John Templeton of Belfast in his “ Catalogue of Irish 
Vertebrate Animals.”* compiled early in this century. This fact, 
that it was not known to Templeton, is very strong evidence, for 
he travelled much in Ireland, and was well acquainted with all 
branches of its flora and fauna. 
But all the arguments hitherto used for or against the squirrel 
being indigenous to Ireland are comparatively of little value when 
we consider its present remarkable distribution, and its rapid 
increase of late years, which is the second argument against its 
being indigenous. 
Through the kindness and courtesy of many correspondents 
all over Ireland, I have been enabled to trace the occurrence of 
the squirrel in every locality in this country with great prob- 
ability to what may be termed local centres of introduction. In 
some cases it is possible to follow its course and fix the dates of 
its occurrence as it advanced from district to district from the 
local centres. No circumstance shows with greater force that 
the squirrel is no more a native of this country than the mole, 
the dormouse, the voles, and many other mammals common in 
England, than its present distribution. We are forced to believe 
that, like the frog, it has been introduced ; for it is impossible to 
reconcile the theory of extinction and subsequent re-introduction 
with the great rapidity of its increase. 
Professor Leith Adams of Queen’s College, Cork, writes :— 
“There are no data, so far as I know, of the squirrel having been 
found in caves in Ireland ; like the beaver and many other mammals, 
it does not appear to have found its way to this country.” 
We have no evidence that the woods were so universally and 
completely cut down as to leave Ireland without a single copse 
or plantation, and thereby annihilate the squirrels. Even at the 
present day there are trees standing whose age must exceed three 
or four, or perhaps five centuries, and the squirrel will breed even 
where a few trees are planted together. 
The squirrels eat such a variety of vegetable food that it is 
* Charlesworth’s Mag. Nat. Hist., Vol. I, n. s., p. 403. 
