156 DELIBERATE DESTRUCTION OF ANIMAL LIFE* 



skins of Calf, Goat, Kid, Rabbit, Polecat, Otter and Badger. 

 Many varieties of skins of domestic animals contributed to 

 the exports fleeces of sheep, skins of "shorlings," lambs 

 and "futfallis" (lambs that die just after birth), goat skins 

 and calf skins, kid skins and salt hides, but sifch skins 

 scarcely entailed slaughter other than food requirements 

 made necessary. Of the skins of wild animals the chief annual 

 exports in the early years of the seventeenth century, as shown 

 in an important paper from the charter chest of the Earl of 

 Mar and Kellie, were 



hairt hyddis [Red Deer skins] 91 daicker 1 extending, at 20 the daicker, 

 to ^iSjo 2 ; rea [Roe Deer] skynnis, 240, at i6s. the pece, ^186'-'; tod 

 skynnis, 1012, at 405-. the pece, ^2024; otter skynnis, 44, at 4os. the pece 

 ;88 ; andcuneing [Rabbit] skinnis, 53,234, at 6 the hundreth, ^3194. 



Apart from this considerable export of Scottish skins, 

 many changed hands within the country at local fairs, of 

 which the annual " Fur Market " of Dumfries was typical. 

 Here there was on sale every February, the year's produce 

 of Dumfriesshire, of the Shire or Stewartry of Galloway, of 

 the counties of Ayr, Lanark, Peebles, Selkirk, Roxburgh, 

 and even of Cumberland and Northumberland; Hare skins, 

 sometimes to the number of 70,000 ; Rabbit skins, in one 

 year as many as 200,000; Fitches, Foumarts or 'Polecats, on 

 one occasion 600 ; and skins of Otters, Badgers, Foxes and 

 Cats as the supply offered. 



The constant drain upon the wild inhabitants of the 

 country for the sake of their skins, cannot but have told 

 upon their numbers. Yet so complicated is the influence of 

 man that the ultimate effects are not always easily to be 

 traced. On the one hand, new opportunities of increase in 

 numbers, afforded by the development of cultivation of the 

 soil, more than compensated for the destruction of Hares 

 and Rabbits, while on the other hand, their destructiveness, 

 real or fancied, hastened the decrease of " vermin " such as 

 the Marten and Polecat, the Otter, Badger and Fox. 

 Nevertheless an account of the histories of a few typical 

 fur-bearing animals in Scotland will give some indication of 

 the effects of continued persecution. 



1 A daicker or daker Lat. decuria, from decem comprised 10 hides. 



I trust that the charter-writer's statistics are more reliable than his 

 arithmetic in these cases. 



