308 THE MOOR AND THE LOCH. ' 



the larger deer, and the female roe drops its young earlier in 

 spring. 



A flock or two of wild goats still linger among the rocky 

 peaks of some precipitous mountains. Like fallow-deer, their 

 ancestors, no doubt, escaped from captivity ; but most unlike 

 them in all else, these goats are the hardiest and most wary 

 of all our rifle-game. They stand in the same relation to deer 

 as ptarmigan do to grouse preferring the bare inaccessible 

 mountain cliff to all other feeding -ground. The kids are 

 frequently dropped in February, and brave the late storms of 

 that month as defiantly as their dams. 



In feudal times, when the king of England and his power- 

 ful barons had whole districts of waste reserved exclusively 

 for the chase, and the chieftains of the north were equally 

 proud of their boundless forestry over mountain and moor, 

 beasts and birds of prey, as well as those preserved for game, 

 roamed these vast rugged solitudes, where now they could 

 scarcely find a resting-place "for the sole of their foot." 

 Wolves, deer, wild turkeys, and the great bustard, had once 

 room and shelter even in fertile England ; while in " stern 

 Caledonia," the old white wild cattle of the country, and the 

 now reinstated capercailzie, shared possession of the brown 

 heath and the shaggy pine -woods with the mountain-stags and 

 the national red grouse. And here the inquiry suggests itself, 

 How has the banished " tetraoan chief " returned again to 

 thrive and prosper ? The problem is easy to solve. As 

 population increased, and the dark dreary forests of the north 

 were thinned or cut down, the giant grouse grew more and 

 more scarce, until the last specimen was killed among the 

 ancient woods of Inverness-shire. 



Gradually, however, the lords of the heather began to 

 reclaim and improve their immense wild tracts, and tree 

 planting had its full share of their time, labour, and expense. 

 Whole hillsides of larch and other copsewood sprang up like 

 mushrooms ; and by the time the " wood grouse " were brought 



