MAMMALS. 



165 



the men brought in a real Wild Cat, which is the last I have seen 

 or heard of with certainty.' 



Captain Dunbar-Brander of Pitgaveny, who has lived in Moray- 

 shire for the last sixty years, has no recollection of seeing a 

 Wild Cat or hearing of one having been killed in the low country 

 — i.e. a tract between the Spey and the Findhorn along the 

 coast, a distance of eighteen or twenty miles, and which extends 

 inland eight or ten miles to where the hills and the grouse-grounds 

 begin. — High up, between the sources of the Findhorn and the 

 Spey, one is occasionally obtained. Edward mentions one he 

 saw killed in Glen Avon, but gives no date. He considered it 

 extinct in 1882, though once abundant in the higher country. 



It used to be not uncommon long ago in Darnaway and 

 Dalvey forests, near Forres, where however it is now believed 

 to be extinct. We are informed of one which was killed at 

 Dalvey about 1861. 



All along the Spey the Wild Cat is becoming scarce, — if not 

 extinct, — even in Badeuoch and as far up the valley as Laggan, 

 where 'the last, a very old one,' was killed in 1873 at the back 

 of the manse of Laggan. It was not however the last, nor was 

 it extinct there in 1882. In the Badenoch Forest and on the 

 confines of North Perthshire, Aberdeenshire, Banffshire, and in 

 Rothiemurchus, it is believed to be extinct. In Abernethy Forest 

 it is extinct, and the last killed in Glenmore was in 1873. 



T. Macpherson-Grant writes : — 'Has several times been killed, 

 in former years (at Ballindalloch), but has not been seen for 

 some time. On inquiry of the Abernethy fox-hunter this 

 autumn, I understood him to say that he very seldom, if ever, 

 meets with them now in any part of the wide district over 

 which he ranges' {in lit. November 1844). 



In all our own travels in Strathspey, Badenoch, and south 

 of the Caledonian Canal, our inquiries for Wild Cats are always 

 met with the same negative reply up to 1891, though craigs and 

 cairns and dens are still pointed out as at one time occupied 

 by them. So frequent are these, and so fresh in the memories 

 of people still living, that it may seem almost unnecessary to 

 enumerate them. 



The only very recent note we have of their occurrence in 

 the west of our area, south of Inverness, is that given in the 



