106 DEER IN BADENOCH. 



proprietors, who held in fee from the Gordon family, to 

 make encroachments, and in course of time to acquire a 

 property to which they had not the smallest legal title. 



" In other respects, rights were more rigidly adhered 

 to ; for the old forest laws, which were exceedingly severe, 

 were enforced to the utmost in this district ; mutilation, 

 and even death were resorted to. It is upon record, that 

 Donald of Keppoch hanged one of his own clan, in order 

 to appease Cluny Macpherson for depredations committed 

 in the forest of Benalder ; and it is a known fact, that 

 another person, called John Our (John the Swarthy), had 

 an eye put out, and his right arm amputated, for a similar 

 oifence ; and it is also said, that he killed deer afterwards, 

 in that mutilated condition. 



" No alteration took place in these forests till after the 

 Rebellion of 1745, when the whole was let for grazing, 

 with the exception of Gaick, which the Duke of Gordon 

 continued as a deer forest until about the year 1788, 

 when it was let as a sheep-walk, and continued so until 

 1816, when the late Duke of Gordon (then Marquis of 

 Huntley) re-established it ; and it is now rented by Sir 

 Joseph Radcliffe. But in consequence of cattle being 

 admitted to summer grazing, the present number of deer, 

 as I am informed, is not great ; probably not more than 

 between two and three hundred. The deer in this forest 

 are small, and chiefly hinds ; but, in all the other named 

 forests, it was not uncommon to kill harts that weighed 

 twenty-four stone, and even up to twenty-seven, imperial 

 weight. 



" The forest of Benalder is now rented by the Marquis 

 of Abercorn, from Cluny Macpherson, chief of Clan- 



