DEER-HUNT IN 1618, 407 



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

 as compared 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 Penny- 

 lesse Pilgrimage," relating to a great hunt given by the 

 Earl of Marr in 1618. 



" I thank my good Lord Erskine (says the poet) ; hco 

 commanded that I should alwayes bee lodged in his 

 lodging, the kitchen being alwayes 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 aquaevitaj. 



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

 superfluous abundance, caught by faulconers, fowlers, 

 fishers, and brought by my lord's (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 

 hundred men doe 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 

 heards (two, three, or four hundred in a heard) to such or 



I) D 4 



