ROE DEER 93 



parts of Berwickshire, except as a rare straggler as far east, 

 however, as the Pease dean woods (Letter from Dr Hardy). In 

 Peeblesshire they have established themselves in most of the 

 large fir plantations which now clothe the hill-sides on both 

 banks of the Tweed, and a few are annually shot by the sports- 

 men of that district. In November 1888 I was delighted to 

 see a party of six bounding through a thicket in the grounds 

 at Portmore, near Eddleston, and a similar group may be 

 seen in the woods at Dawyck. In Linlithgowshire, I fim 

 told, it is occasionally seen, chiefly in the more inland parts ; 

 and in most of the woodlands of Stirling and south-west 

 Perth it is more or less common. It inhabits the extensive 

 woods at Tulliallan, where I have myself seen it, and its 

 appearance in tlie plantations of some of the adjoining- 

 properties is a common occurrence. In the west of Fife 

 it is not uncommon in the neighbourhood of Saline, for 

 instance ; but in the east of the county it appears to be rare 

 — a few, however, still exist in the woods at Falkland. 



In olden times the Eoe was, without doubt, much more 

 abundant and generally distributed in the district than now, 

 but the destruction of the forests and thickets, the growth 

 of agriculture, and the loss of protection, gradually drove it 

 from the southern section of Scotland, so that during the 

 whole of the eighteenth century, and probably longer, it 

 seems to have been entirely absent from our bounds, except 

 in the mountainous country around Callander. In most 

 localities the "Eae" probably long survived the Eed Deer, but, 

 apart from tradition and a few place-names, there is compara- 

 tively little evidence of its former abundance. I cannot recall 

 any direct historical evidence for the area with which we are 

 more immediately concerned, but as proving the existence 

 of the animal in the south of Scotland during the reign of 

 Alexander II. (1214-1249), I may refer to the oft-quoted 



