6 WILD LIFE OF SCOTLAND 



either with trees, or wild animals ; but such a 

 number of boars, in suitable places, sufficiently 

 far out of the way of the nervous, as would 

 place the name once again on the list of our 

 fauna. 



"About 1796," writes the Duke of Atholl, "my 

 grandfather imported several reindeer from 

 Lapland, but they nearly all died on the journey 

 between Leith and Blair - Atholl, I believe for 

 want of some particular moss on which they feed. 

 One, however, I understand, lived for two years. 

 I see no reason why reindeer should not be intro- 

 duced into this country, looking to the more 

 rapid means of transit we now possess." 



The climate cannot have changed so much since 

 the twelfth century, as to be fatal. There is 

 good reason to believe that the reindeer haunts 

 the region of the glaciers, and the margin of the 

 icefield, less from choice than persecution. A male 

 and female let loose, amid the misty and snowless 

 mounds of Orkney, conditions altogether different 

 from those with which we associate them, seem 

 to have perished from neglect ; ' not being found 

 to answer the purpose intended.' 



The lowly diet, of which there is abundance on 

 the Highland hills, takes little away from that 



