200 



MAMMALS. 



and this, along with several severe winters, notably that of 1795, 

 may have aided in their almost extinction. 



From the foregoing remarks we may assume that though the 

 species became extinct in Sutherland, Eoss, Speyside, and also the 

 more accessible portions of Moray-, Nairn-, and Inverness-shires, it 

 lingered in some of the wilder and more inaccessible parts of 

 Strathspey, Badenoch, and probably some parts of Inverness-shire. 

 Mr. Grant-Thomson, forester to the Countess of Seafield, informed 

 Harvie-Brown that there is a farm in Abernethy surrounded with 

 trees, called ' Ehinnafeorrich,' or 'Squirrel Field,' which has always 

 gone by that name. About the year 1770 or 1780, and prior to 

 that date. Squirrels were quite plentiful, but about that time there 

 were some very severe winters which killed them all off, save a very 

 few that escaped in Rothiemurchus. These gradually increased in 

 number, and spread up Glenmore, and Mr. Thomson's informant 

 remembered when they were first seen in Abernethy Forest^ and not 

 only overspread that district, but the whole country. 



Writing to the Rev. Geo. Gordon in November 1822, Mr. 

 Macpherson-Grant, Ballindalloch, said: — 'One only that I have 

 heard of was seen on the property a few years ago. They used 

 to be pretty common in Rothiemurchus.' 



In the low grounds of Moray, the Squirrel was seen by Captain 

 Dunbar-Brander of Pitgaveny, first, near Elgin in 1853 or 1854, 

 when one crossed the road in front of him as he was driving to his 

 grouse-moor. From Fochabers, Mr. J. Wedderspoon says that 

 the species was first known about 1860, and it became a great 

 nuisance in two years after that time. 



Mr. R. Thomson, in his notes to Harvie-Brown, gives about 

 1852 as the date when it appeared along the lower reaches of the 

 river Nairn, before which time it was entirely unknown there; 

 since then it has greatly increased. At Duthil they appeared 

 about 1850, according to Mr. J. Robertson. 



All these last accounts point to the extension of the remainder 

 of the original stock of Squirrels which survived in the Badenoch 

 districts already mentioned, and which, until lately, when, no 

 doubt, the two divisions overlapped, had nothing to do with the 

 Beaufort introductions in 1844, which peopled Ross-shire and 

 Sutherland. 



Squirrels were re-introduced into the north-east of Inverness- 



