MAMMALS. 



211 



destroyed year by year, with the exception of the Golden Eagle. 

 No doubt this bird does consume a large number, but still the 

 number of Hares increases all at once ! We well remember an 

 instance of this when on the west coast of Eoss-shire. In 1880-81 

 the number of Hares was, for the district, quite large, and only 

 the severe winter prevented our making a considerable bag of 

 these animals, as we could not get up the hills owing to the depth 

 of the snow. Next season they were so scarce as to be not worth 

 while looking for; no dead ones were seen, nor indeed does 

 the White Hare seem to suffer directly to any great extent from 

 hard winters. AVe heard that others experienced the same thing 

 in other parts of the west coast. 



Though essentially a mountain-loving species, still the White 

 Hare has been found at times quite in the low country. We have 

 seen it in Sutherland very low down, not half-a-mile from the sea, 

 and St. John relates in his Natural History of Moray ^ p. 86, that on 

 April 5th, 1853, two were killed close to Elgin, and adds that this 

 was a very unusual occurrence. The same author has recorded it 

 from Spynie and Covesea. 



It is curious to find no record of this species in the O.S.A. from 

 any parish of Banff or from the valley of the river Deveron. 



South of the Great Glen an abundant species still, though 

 possibly not quite so much so as about forty years ago. At Ballin- 

 dalloch (1844) 'it is very generally remarked that this species has 

 of late become much more numerous than formerly, and that they 

 are now not unfrequently found on low moors where none used 

 ever to be seen ' (T. Macpherson Grant, Ballindalloch, in lit). 



In some seasons the White Hare breeds very early, and we saw 

 a leveret exposed for sale in a shop-window in Inverness on the 

 10th of April 1885. 



The Alpine Hare is very abundant along the summit ridges 

 of the Monadhliath mountains, and indeed over all the higher 

 mountains of Badenoch and Lochaber, the Cairngorms, and in the 

 Cam districts. But, as Mr. R. Thomson assures us, it * is seldom 

 found descending below an elevation of 800 feet on any of the 

 Findhorn watersheds.' We have seen White Hares coursed by grey- 

 hounds near the sources of the Foyers and Findhorn rivers, having 

 climbed up from the Spey valley at Shirramore to Lochan Iain ; 

 and they were very plentiful there. ' On several occasions,' con- 



