Fur enough

It is good to see that red squirrels in Scotland are holding their ground (your report, 8 February). Deforestation drove it to extinction here during the 18th century. The reds we see now are mostly descended from animals introduced from England at Dalkeith in 1772 and from Scandinavia at Dunkeld in 1793. So seeing them through the prism of banal nationalism as brave indigenous defenders struggling against the evil American invader, the grey, is wrong, even if the recent sur- prising discovery that some British reds suffer from leprosy links them with Robert the Bruce.

HUGH PENNINGTON Carlton Place, Aberdeen