MAMMALS. 



indeed is to be expected where the real Wild Cat had been longer 

 unknown to the present race of gamekeepers and vermin killers. A 

 vague account is given of one killed in the north-east of Kincardine 

 and sent to the Museum at Montrose. Just over the watershed in 

 Glen Dye, which drains into the river Dee through the Water of 

 Feugh, two were killed by a gamekeeper — Clarke — in 1850, the only 

 ones seen in that quarter for thirty years (say 1820). Glen Dye lies 

 among the eastern extremities of the range of our watershed between 

 Tay and Dee." 



The above pages are an almost exact copy of what I wrote in 

 1881-2 in the Zoologist, and since then I have not succeeded in 

 accumulating much more of interest anywhere throughout the area, 

 but I add these few notes as they have been told to me. To maintain 

 some sequence in chronology, however, I will go back to a few earlier 

 accounts, as is usually my custom. 



Amongst earlier eWdences of their presence the author of the 

 volume on the Agriculture of Kincardineshire says, ''Wild Cats are 

 found in several of the woods." This was in the latter years of the 

 eighteenth century (1793 being the date of the publication). But in all 

 these old accounts we must remember how vaguely such statements 

 were often given. I do not find any mention of Wild Cats in the 

 volume of the same series which relates to Forfar ; and, still more 

 surprising, neither is any mention made of the animal in the volume 

 for Perthshire I 



Dr. Buchanan White in his list mentions, as the last he had heard 

 of in Perth, the ones I have related above as obtained by Mr. D. 

 Dewar at Loch Tay — Finlarig and Auchumore — in 1869. Thus the 

 Wild Cat has long been considered as extinct. But I have since 

 been informed by Mr. Duncan Dewar — now retired from his duties 

 at Remony, and residing at Killin at the head of Loch Tay — that he 

 was fortunate enough to kill three more true Wild Cats on Remony 

 before he retired in May 1904. These were got by himself — one in 

 1896, one in 1898, and the last in 1899. I have the vermin lists 

 from the Breadalbane estates in Perthshire, but a pity is that all 

 Cats are entered therein under the column for Cats simply ! These 

 vermin lists include the years between 1890 and 1900. However, 

 I do not consider that fact as militating in any way against Mr. 

 Dewar's communication. 



With regard to the previously recorded Wild Cats in Glen Dye 

 (of Dee), I am further informed by Mr. J. Milne that they are still 

 preserved in the keepers' house in Glen Dye, where one of the 



