MAMMALS. 



169 



A family party which we saw on one occasion among the 

 corries of Ben Alder, close to Prince Charlie's Cave, early one 

 morning in August, afforded our companions and ourselves infinite 

 amusement for a time by their gambols in the early sunlight. 

 They have bred in this same cairn for many years undisturbed. 



The annual crop of foxes is fairly well maintained by those 

 who often reap an annual income from their destruction, on the 

 principle that it is a mistake to 'kill the goose that lays the golden 

 eggs.' In the deer-forests there are fine kennels for foxes always, 

 from which fine hill-foxes can usually be obtained. 



Captain Dunbar-Brander, speaking of the former abundance of 

 Foxes in Morayshire when he was a youngster, says they appeared 

 to live amicably in the same burrows with the Badger, which was, 

 at that time, also abundant {Elgin and Nairn Express^ 22nd July 

 1893). Captain Dunbar-Brander also speaks of Foxes' homes being 

 usually amongst rocks and natural cracks in peat-mosses; and, 

 where found frequenting the same earths as the Badger, he — no 

 doubt rightly — conjectures that the earths were first excavated by 

 the latter animal. The same gentleman has some interesting and 

 suggestive remarks regarding the cleanliness of wild animals' dens 

 or hiding-holes. He believes this cleanliness may in some degree 

 be due to the fact that they are physically unable to soil them, 

 and proceeds : — ' A Fox enters his den crawling on his stomach. 

 He can't stand up in his earth; the roof is too low, and, if he can't 

 stand up, he is obliged to keep it clean.' 



Dr. Gordon said that their depredations to the hen-roosts were 

 much more serious about thirty years prior to the date at which 

 he wrote (1844) than now, and accounts for it by the increase of 

 natural food of late years, and not by diminution of their numbers 

 {Fauna of Moray). 



Of the numbers killed, it is not perhaps of great interest to 

 speak, seeing that a regular crop can, year by year, be depended 

 upon, but one or two instances may be given north and south of 

 Inverness. In Glenlivet, Mr. Petrie, one of the Duke of Richmond's 

 gamekeepers, got nine Foxes in the spring of 1892, and Anderson, 

 keeper at Blackwater Lodge, got twelve. 



Mr. R. Thomson sends us some interesting local notes. He 

 says: — 'Among the old people here the Fox and his depredations 

 in the hen-roost are still well remembered, but although a stray 



