184 The ScotiisJi N'atiiralist. 



other trees of older growth, while on the meadow ground and 

 banks of the river there is a luxuriant carpet of low plants. 



It must be confessed that at first the scenery near Forest 

 Lodge does not convey the imi3ression that a longer acquaintance 

 with it does. When that has taken place, the quiet pastoral char- 

 acter of the view imperceptibly wins upon the mind, and after 

 a few days have been spent in the silence of the glen, and when, 

 by much hard but well-spent labour, the really large scale on 

 which these apparently low green hills bounding the valley are 

 constructed has been discovered, Glen Tilt will be found to have 

 a charm almost peculiarly its own. 



VERTEBRATA. 



Of the mammals of the glen there is not very much to say, as 

 they are numerous rather in specimens than species. 



At no very distant period it might have been possible, perhaps, 

 had the ' Scottish Naturalist ' been then existent, to have described 

 the habits and appearance of the Wolves that then inhabited 

 Glen Tilt, the pits in which the hunters lay in watch for them 

 being still traceable. Now, the chief mammal of the glen is the 

 Red Deer, which, as being the largest remaining land animal 

 still remaining native to Britain, must always possess some in- 

 terest for a naturalist. Moreover, when one lives in a forest the 

 Deer and their manners and customs are constantly coming to 

 the surface of conversation, and many an interesting fact can be 

 picked up by an attentive listener. 



In the middle of summer the Deer do not come much into the 

 glen itself, as food is abundant in the higher glens ; but owing to 

 the cold inclement nature of last summer they came frequently 

 into Glen Tilt, close to Forest Lodge, even late in July. It was 

 no unfrequent sight to see, in the gloaming of the evening, many 

 of them on the ridge above the lodge, their graceful forms clearly 

 defined on the sky-line. 



Deer often come a long way to a favourite feeding-ground ; 

 some of the old harts, which rest on the higher tops during the 

 day, especially when the flies are troublesome, descending to 

 their pastures at nightfall, and returning at daybreak to the hill- 

 tops, perhaps several miles away. 



The size that Deer and their horns attain is, as might be expected, 

 much influenced by the quantity and quality of their food. Hence 

 it is that many of the stags which inhabit the forests of Central 

 Europe attain a larger size, and have much bigger '-hcad-s," than 



