WILD LIFE IN A WEST HIGHLAND DEER FOREST 263 



prevailed. My investigations were chiefly confined to 

 the Subalpine Zone (1000 to 2000 feet) the chief centre 

 of animal life, and the one where the influence of the season 

 was bound to be the greatest. 



The winter fauna of the Alpine Zone (2000 to 36 n feet) 

 is very limited, and is confined to a few species the Fox, 

 Stoat, Mountain- Hare, and Field- Vole among mammals, 

 and the Raven, Golden Eagle, Peregrine, Snow-Bunting, 

 Ptarmigan, and Red Grouse among birds : some of these, 

 however, are wanderers, since they seek their food over other, 

 and to some degree more favoured, areas of the Forest. 

 The Red Deer descends to the lower zones and is. not 

 found above 2000 feet. In the Subalpine Zone all the 

 mammals found in the Forest are present in winter, includ- 

 ing the Roe- Deer. The greatest change was obvious among 

 those pre-eminently mobile creatures, the birds; but even 

 among these I found the number and variety of forms 

 braving the cold season greater than I expected. Certain 

 species, however, which normally pass the winter in climatic- 

 ally more favoured parts of our islands were absent, having 

 winged their way at the end of the nesting season to those 

 more genial quarters ; among them the Song-Thrushes, the 

 woodland Redbreasts, the few Skylarks, the Meadow-Pipits, 

 Pied Wagtails, most of the Chaffinches, including all the 

 females, the Sparrow-Hawks, Merlins, Kestrels, some of the 

 Peregrines, and the Woodcocks. On the other hand, cock 

 Chaffinches, House-Sparrows, Blackbirds, Redbreasts, and 

 Hedge- Accentors remained and frequented the gardens 

 (1300 feet); Dippers, one or two Herons, and a number of 

 Mallards were to be seen by the unfrozen running waters 

 of the River Ossian and its tributary burns ; while several 

 Waterhens haunted the margins of frozen ditches. 



Winter bird-life was most numerously represented in 

 the old birch wood, where the all-important food resources 

 were less affected than elsewhere. Here the seeds of the 

 birch catkins and the insects x they contained afforded food 

 for Redpolls, Bullfinches, and Blue and Great Titmice. The 

 Tree-Creepers and the Cole Titmouse found spiders and 



1 Probably the larvae of the Birch Gail-Fly {Cecidomyia be tula). 

 71 2 G 



