EFFECTS UPON ANIMAL LIFE 333 



which the destruction of forest brought to bear upon its 

 denizens. 



THE RED DEER 



The course of the Red Deer's story runs upon the same 

 rough path of ill fortune as that of the Roe. But even 

 more than the Roe, the Red has come under the influence 

 of man, its size and the value of its venison having made 

 it an object of more deliberate pursuit as of more strict 

 protection. 



In the days before man's arrival in Scotland the Red 

 Deer roamed the country over. Strange to say the greater 

 number of the prehistoric records of its presence come from 

 an area which it has long deserted the Lowland valleys. 

 With these records it is impossible to deal individually, but 

 a summary of the distribution of the Red Deer, as the 

 natural deposits of the country have revealed it, will empha- 

 size one significant phase of its history in Scotland. 



In our oldest lake deposits the marl clays formed 

 generally at a period not long after the close of the Ice Age, 

 remains of Red Deer are abundant. Bones and antlers have 

 been found in Roxburghshire, Peeblesshire and Selkirkshire, 

 in Midlothian and Linlithgowshire, and as far north as 

 Caithness. The overlying peat-mosses afford still more 

 interesting evidence of its presence in the Lowlands it 

 ranged from Wigtownshire and Ayrshire eastwards and 

 northwards through Dumfriesshire, Selkirkshire, Roxburgh- 

 shire, Berwickshire, to the extreme corner of Haddington- 

 shire ; it peopled the midland valley even at the mouths of 

 the Earn and Tay ; in the Highlands it reached the furthest 

 limits of Inverness-shire on the west, of Sutherland on the 

 north ; and there are many evidences of its presence in the 

 isles of Orkney and Shetland. 



Neolithic man made use of its flesh for food and of its 

 bones and antlers for tools, and there is scarcely a settle- 

 ment where he or his early successors dwelt that does not 

 contain its remains. Kitchen-middens of Bronze and Iron 

 Age, hill forts and underground " Eird Houses," Roman 

 settlements and "Pictish Towers" or brochs all tell of its 

 abundance. Even in Orkney, Red Deer of large size were 



