DESTRUCTION FOR SPORT ^187 



It must be remembered, however, that influences are 

 complex and that while a widespread influence, like the 

 destruction of woodland, was the main factor in causing the 

 decline or extermination in Scotland of such as the Red 

 Deer and the Reindeer, yet sport also contributed to their 

 disappearance, for we have the evidence of the Orkneyinga 

 Saga that even in the twelfth century journeys were made 

 from distant parts expressly for the purpose of hunting the 

 Red Deer and the Reindeer in the uplands of Caithness and 

 Sutherland. The results of excessive sport have been shown 

 nowhere more clearly than in the United States of America, 

 where, before protecting laws had been introduced, the native 

 carnivores, deer and game birds of many States had been 

 brought to the verge of extinction. 



So also causes other than sport told hardly upon certain 

 of the game creatures. The Great Bustard and the Bittern 

 were chased and hunted and are exterminated, yet the evi- 

 dence seems to show that sport had much less to do with their 

 disappearance in Scotland than had the cultivation of waste 

 places in the case of the former (see p. 366) and the reclama- 

 tion of marshes in the case of the latter (see p. 374). Such 

 at least I take to be the indication of the unsuccessful 

 attempts to re-establish the Great Bustard in Britain, now 

 that all question of active destruction is eliminated. 



The use of game birds as food further combined with 

 the destruction of sport to accentuate the reduction of their 

 numbers, witness the declaration of the Statute of 1600, 

 heralding the imposition of new and heavier penalties against 

 illegal dealing in* game one hundred pounds to be paid by 

 both buyer and seller if they were "responsal in gudes," and 

 if they were not that they be " scourged throw the burgh or 

 town where they shall be apprehended." Regarding the 

 profiteers of the seventeenth century, this Act alleges that 



diverse and sundry persons, having greater regard of their gaine and 

 commodity whilk they purches by the selling of the said wyld-fowle to sik 

 persons wha prefers their awne inordinat appetite and gluttony either to 

 the obedience of the said lawes or to the recreation that may be had by 

 the direct slaying of the samine, hes used all the saids indirect meanes in 

 slaying of the saids wyld fowles and beastes, whereby this country being so 

 plentifully furnished of before is become altogether scarce of sik waires 1 . 



1 My italics. 



