1058 LIFE : OUTLINES OF GENERAL BIOLOGY 



some of these types may be useful, especially as a background 

 against which to survey subsequent introductions. 



Reindeer, probably of the Woodland or Caribou variety, per- 

 sisted as wild animals in the north of Scotland until the twelfth 

 century. Beside the Reindeer may be included the Giant Fallow 

 Deer (Irish Elk) and the true Elk, the former extinct, the latter no 

 longer represented in Britain. The Red Deer and the Roe Deer are 

 persistent representatives of the old fauna; the Fallow Deer is a 

 subsequent introduction. 



Appearing first in inter-glacial deposits, but lasting for many 

 centuries along with man, on probably to the ninth or tenth, was 

 the Wild Ox or Urus {Bos taurus primigenhts) , once widespread in 

 Europe. Man did not domesticate it in Scotland, but it may have 

 crossed with the Celtic Shorthorn {B. taurus longifrons), which he 

 brought with him when he came. The Wild Boar {Sus scrofa), on 

 the other hand, was one of the early Scottish mammals, doubtless 

 spreading from the forests of Central Europe, and it was domesti- 

 cated in Scotland as elsewhere. There is an old-fashioned race of 

 sheep in the uninhabited island of Soay, in the North Atlantic, a 

 race which links with the Wild Moufion of Corsica and Sardinia, 

 one of the ancestors of domesticated sheep; and there is an old- 

 fashioned Turbary Sheep in the Shetlands, a race which links with 

 the Neolithic "peat sheep" which were shepherded through a great 

 part of Europe by Neolithic Man; but there is no reason to believe 

 that sheep-domestication occurred in Scotland. There were wdld 

 horses in Scotland before man arrived — the Celtic Pony type 

 {Equus agilis), common long ago in Western Europe; and traces of 

 these linger in the Hebridean pony and the Shetland pony. It is 

 said that a herd lasted till 1507 in the Forest of Birse, in Aberdeen- 

 shire, but the main stock of domesticated horses probably came in 

 the train of the Neolithic herdsmen from the Continent, notably 

 perhaps from Scandinavia. 



As to the larger Carnivores, the Wolf lingered in Scotland till the 

 seventeenth century, even to 1743 according to some. Its disap- 

 pearance was especially connected with the shrinkage and the burn- 

 ing of the forests, and with more determined wolf-hunting, which 

 was compulsory as late as the fifteenth century. The Brown Bear 

 lingered in Scotland into the Christian era, and along with it the 

 Lynx. 



Of the original small carnivores there is a persistence of Fox, 

 Badger, Otter, Polecat, Stoat, Weasel, Wild Cat, and Marten. The 

 last is dwindling to a vanishing point ; the Wild Cat is rare, but of 

 recent years notably on the increase. Seals continue to hold their 

 own; but the Walrus, which used often to visit Scottish coasts, has 

 been persecuted into extreme rarity. Most of the Cetaceans, except 

 Porpoises, become scarcer every year. 



