4 INTRODUCTORY 



own political historians of former days condescended to 

 notice. 



But even the sparse and slender guide-posts of early 

 chronicled history fail us in the ages (seven thousand years 

 or more) which intervened between the coming of man to 

 Scotland and the Christian era. Glimpses of this long- 

 forgotten past can be gained only by piecing together the 

 evidences left by animals and man himself, from bones and 

 relics discovered by systematic excavation or by lucky 

 chance in beds of marl, in the layers of peat-bogs, in the 

 deposits of caves, in the kitchen-middens or refuse food- 

 heaps of the. early inhabitants, and in the structures built 

 by man for defence, or for interment of his hallowed dead. 



Pictures of Scottish animal life in successive ages 

 having been gleaned from these varied sources, simple 

 comparison of one with another and with the fauna as it is 

 known to-day will reveal the vast changes which have taken 

 place. Yet still a problem lies before us that of sifting 

 from the totality of change the effects due to the influence 

 of man as distinct from the inevitable changes wrought by 

 time in all Nature, animate and inanimate. In working out 

 this problem reference will be made on occasion in the 

 following pages to outstanding cases in other lands which 

 help to illustrate man's influence and to explain the effects 

 of his dominance in Scotland. 



MAIN DIRECTIONS OF MAN'S INFLUENCE 



Man has been described from one point of view as an 

 instrument of destruction and from another as a creative 

 agent. The truth of the matter as regards his relations 

 with Nature is that he is neither all in all a destroyer nor 

 a creator, but exercises his powers mainly as a transformer 

 and a supplanter. Wherever he places his foot, wild vegeta- 

 tion withers and dies out, and he replaces it by new growths 

 to his own liking, sometimes transformed by his genius for 

 his own use. Where he pitches his tents and builds his 

 cities, wild animals disappear, and woodlands and valleys 

 where they sported are wrested from their prior owners 

 and given over to the art of agriculture and to animals of 

 man's own choosing, as well as to a host of camp-followers, 



