ANIMALS INTRODUCED FOR AMENITY 287 



districts. Indeed, so suitable do conditions in Scotland 

 appear to be that, once established in freedom, Fallow Deer 

 are not easily kept in check. A single authentic example 

 will be sufficient to illustrate this adaptability. About 1780 

 a dozen F"allow Deer were brought to Raehills in Dumfries- 

 shire from Hopetoun, where they have existed since at 

 any rate 1700. They were carefully tended for some time, 

 but finally broke out of their enclosure and became wild. 

 So rapidly did they increase in numbers, and so annoying 

 did their depredations on growing crops become, that serious 

 attempts were made to exterminate them. Expert marksmen 

 were employed, and liberty was given to one and all to shoot 

 the runaways. In a single week, 50 of the deer were killed, 

 and yet the efforts of the deer-slayers could not keep pace 

 with the increase of the deer, and in 1845 they had become 

 exceedingly wild and were supposed to number upwards of 

 two hundred. 



Indeed it is clear from other evidence that Fallow Deer 

 had become established in the forests of mid-Scotland before 

 the middle of the seventeenth century, for the Wardlaw 

 Chronicles record how in 1642 a "gallant, noble convoy, well 

 appointed and envyed be many " went a-hunting with the 

 master and his lady, and in the Forest of Killin in mid- 

 Perthshire "got fallow-deer hunting to their mind, and such 

 princely sport as might alleviat the dullest spirit." 



In our day, the Fallow Deer, introduced to Scotland at 

 various times by man's agency, and holding its place by virtue 

 of its own adaptability, is to be found in a wild state from 

 Drumlanrig in Dumfriesshire in the south, through the wilds 

 of central Argyllshire, the woods of the Tay Valley from 

 Stanley to Blair Athole, in the Islands of Mull and Islay, to 

 their northern outpost in the Dornoch woods of Sutherland. 

 And, whereas it was introduced to" add to the amenities of 

 the pleasure park, it has become, on account of its numbers, 

 an object of sport as well as the source of a useful supply 

 of venison. 



VIRGINIAN AND JAPANESE DEER 



The elegant and graceful Virginian deer (Cariacus mr- 

 giniamis), a native of North America, was set at liberty 

 about 1832 in Arran, where it succeeded in establishing 



