172 



MAMMALS. 



Eothiemurchus, and Glenfeshie. It was then found in Badenoch, 

 but was believed to be extinct in Ben- Alder forest, none having 

 been seen for several years previously. At Invereshie four were 

 trapped during the two years of 1879 and 1880. 



Captain Dunbar-Brander informs us that a pair appeared 

 in a wood near Burghead about 1866 or 1868. They were 

 caught and stuffed, and were for years in a gunmaker's shop 

 in Elgin. ' Not the oldest poacher or keeper had ever seen one 

 here — at Pitgaveny. It was a mystery how they came, or from 

 where.' 



Curiously, the O.S.A. is silent as to the occurrence of the 

 Marten; but this is not really very significant as regards the 

 Moray Basin, as the same old record is more than usually 

 meagre in all its Natural History statistics for our present area, 

 as compared with its fulness of detail in other areas, such as 

 ' Argyll' 



Even in 1844 it does not, however, appear to have been 

 abundant, as Dr. Gordon records one killed some years before in 

 the Oakwood near Elgin as a somewhat uncommon occurrence, 

 and Thomas Macpherson Grant says : — ' An individual, probably 

 of this species, was trapped in a fir plantation about seventeen 

 years ago, but I have not been able to learn of any having been 

 since seen ' (T. Macpherson Grant, Esq., in lit. to Dr. Gordon, 

 November 1844), and it is still rare in the above-mentioned 

 locality; we have a record of two, one from Speyside, May 1863, 

 and another from Ballindalloch, May 1879. 



Edward gives details concerning one which was seen, in 1848, 

 to descend from a tree in the hills of Boyndie and enter a rabbit's 

 hole, but which escaped the attempt to dig it out. 



Mr. James Grant, in a list of Vermin sent to us as having been 

 killed on Eoseisle — to the east of the village of Findhorn, and 

 near Burghead — whilst including the commoner vermin, also 

 makes entry of the Marten Cat at Inverugie, near Hopeman, but 

 does not give the date (in lit. 1885). 



Writing in 1891, Mr. William Robertson says, that it is over 

 thirty years since he saw a Marten or a Polecat about the woods 

 upon the Dulnan. 



The Marten was considered as extinct in the valley of the Avon 

 (Strathspey), but one was killed in 1885 near Delnadamph, as 



