212 



MAMMALS. 



tinues Mr. E. Thomson in his account of the species in his MS., * as 

 many as 600 have fallen in one day to the guns of a tenant's shoot- 

 ing party on the Cawdor moors. The White Hare is not known 

 to burrow in this district, but in cases of emergency it will not 

 hesitate to seek concealment in the first suitable hole, or other 

 opening which may conveniently present itself. In ordinary cases 

 it merely scoops a hollow, near the top of the hill, deep enough 

 to protect the body from the passing blast.' 



Lepus cuniculus, L. Rabbit. 



Except the very highest hill-tops and the wet flow-lands there are 

 very few places now where the Rabbit may not be found. In 

 1847, however, in some of the wilder districts, such as Glen 

 Affric, they did not exist, according to Mr. Hepburn, so that their 

 presence there now must have taken place within more recent 

 times. 



This animal, now so common in many places as to be a pest, was 

 introduced ' many years ago to Ballindalloch, but continued very 

 scarce until about 1829 or 1830, when their increasing numbers 

 began to attract notice, and shortly after this the farmers there- 

 about were encouraged to destroy them by every means in their 

 power' (T. Macpherson Grant, in lit. 1844). 



The O.S.A. speaks of the Rabbit as occurring in Rothiemurchus 

 and Duthil (vol. iv. p. 290), but is silent as regards the valley of 

 the Deveron. 



Captain Dunbar-Brander informs us that his father. Sir A. 

 Dunbar of Northfield, who died an old man in 1848 (he was born 

 about 1770), said ' that the first Rabbits seen in Moray were a 

 pair or two on the links at Lossiemouth about 1750, and they 

 were supposed to have escaped from a foreign vessel in the 

 harbour' {in lit. 1st September 1891). 



The Rabbit appears also by the New Statistical Account to have 

 been introduced a few years previous to the publication of that 

 work, in the parish of Kiltearn, and had by the latter date * multi- 

 plied amazingly,' and similar remarks occur under the parish of 

 Urquhart and Logie-Wester (loc. cit. p. 368). 



At the present time the Rabbit is said to be decreasing at 

 Delnabo, Glen Avon, on account perhaps of a too cold winter 

 (fide Fraser, keeper, ex ore). 



