Mr. McGregor is a fictional character in three children's books by author and illustrator Beatrix Potter. He is an elderly, serio-comic villain of Scots background intent upon keeping hungry rabbits out of his vegetable garden and sometimes catching them to put them in a pie and eat them. Potter denied the character was based on a real person but her mentor in mycology, Charlie McIntosh, may have been the inspiration for McGregor's physical appearance and her landlord in 1893, Atholl McGregor, may have been the source for the character's name. Mr. McGregor appeared in two episodes of an animated BBC television series based on Potter's books in 1993.