244 FOREST CONTRACTS. 



we shall find that the most severe laws mutilation, and 

 even the penalty of death itself, have not had sufficient 

 terrors to arrest the course of unlawful depredators. 

 Deer-killing by poachers was formerly carried on to such 

 an extent, that the proprietors of forests found it necessary 

 to combine in order to protect their mutual interests. In 

 the Collectanea de rebus Albanicis of the Tona Club, there 

 is a contract, dated November 3. 1628, between several of 

 the principal Highland lairds " for the preservation of deer 

 and roe on their respective estates, and the punishment of 

 trespassers ; " mutually binding themselves to respect each 

 other's forests, and cause them to be respected by their 

 retainers, under special penalties, according to the rank of 

 the person transgressing : a hundred merks for a gentleman, 

 with forfeiture of the hagbute or bow ; 40Z. for a tenant ; 

 and in case of a common man, " his bodie to be punishit 

 according as pleises the superior of the forest : ane witness 

 sufficient." They appear to have had a sort of jury trial 

 of poachers. 



There are several old acts of the Scottish parliament 

 " anent steilors of hart, hynd, roe and doe, to be punishit 

 as thift, and anent shuitteries at thame; quhilk is ap- 

 pointed to be punishit with death, and escheit of their 

 gudes moveable." These laws have been reckoned bar- 

 barous, but they are not more severe than those which, in 

 former times, were in force against sheep-stealers, taking 

 likewise into consideration, that sheep are of infinitely less 

 value than deer. If it be true that deer wander from one 

 forest to another, so that no laird can claim a certain pro- 

 perty in them, it is also obvious that the common poacher 

 can have no right in any case, and must steal from some 



