306 FORESTS OF SCOTLAND. 



in his alpine domains, and he imported five of these animals 

 from Switzerland ; his late Majesty, however, having ex- 

 pressed a wish to have them at Windsor, they were accord- 

 ingly sent there, where they produced young ones. A 

 wooden tower was built for them, and they raced up and 

 down it as if they had been amongst their native rocks. 

 They died from having eaten some poisonous herb, so that 

 on all accounts, it is very much to be regretted that they 

 were not sent originally to the Marr Forest. 



The remaining trees in Braemar are the last of the Scotch 

 pine-forests : their leaves are of a very dark green as com- 

 pared with the common Scotch fir. 



I wish the communications I have had the honour of 

 receiving from the Earl of Fife had enabled me to give a 

 more detailed account of this magnificent country, and the 

 traditions which belong to it. Unfortunately, I have it 

 not in my power to supply any further information, and 

 shall therefore close this account with an extract from a 

 work of Taylor, the Water Poet, entitled " The Pennylesse 

 Pilgrimage," relating to a great hunt given by the Earl of 

 Marr in 1618. 



" I thank my good Lord Erskine," says the poet ; " hee 

 commanded that I should alwayes bee lodged in his lodg- 

 ing, the kitchen being always on the side of a banke, 

 many kettles and pots boyling, and many spits turning and 

 winding with great variety of cheere, as venison baked, 

 sodden, rost, and stu'de ; beef, mutton, goates, kid, hares, 

 fish, salmon, pigeons, hens, capons, chickens, partridge, 

 moorcoots, heathcocks, caperkillies, and termagents; good 

 ale, sacke, white and claret, tent (or Allegant), and most 

 potent aqtioevita. 



" All these, and more than these, we had continually in 

 superfluous abundance, caught by faulconers, fowlers, 

 fishers, and brought by my lords (Mar) tenants and pur- 

 veyers to victual our campe, which consisted of fourteen or 

 fifteen hundred men and horses. 



" The manner of the hunting is this : five or six hun- 

 dred men cloe rise early in the morning, and they doe 

 disperse themselves divers wayes, and seven, eight, or ten, 

 miles compass they doe bring or chase in the deer in many 



