EFFECTS UPON ANIMAL LIFE 341 



erected throughout Scotland from the Lowlands to the ex- 

 treme north, " to withstand the incursions of roving pirates 

 from overseas," we must pass for further evidence of the 

 Reindeer's presence. But now the Reindeer is on the decline 

 in Scotland, for its remains are confined to the northern 

 counties. In Sutherland several pieces of antlers were found 

 amongst the food debris of the Broch of Cinn Trolla; in 

 Caithness, the Brochs of Yarhouse and Keiss,.as well as the 

 Harbour Mound at the latter place, yielded fragments of 

 antlers, and at Kettleburn, horns and remains of Deer were 

 discovered which, the excavator says "were not the Red 

 Deer " these too may have belonged to the Reindeer. Less 

 uncertainty attaches to a fragment unearthed in the Broch 

 of Burwick, in the parish of Sandwick. Orkney, where the 

 investigator found " one piece of horn like a part of a rein- 

 deer antler, or a fallow deer's, as it is broad and palmated." 

 It is unlikely that this fragment belonged to a Fallow Deer, 

 of which there is no definite record in Britain in historic times 

 till its introduction by man a few centuries ago (see p. 284). 

 Another possibility is that it may have belonged to the Elk 

 or Moose, but the size and palmation of an Elk's antler is 

 on a much grander scale than that of a Fallow Deer, with 

 which comparison is suggested, and there is no confirmatory 

 evidence that the Elk ever existed in Orkney. We are 

 driven, therefore, to suppose that the palmated antler was 

 that of a Reindeer, though I cannot help regretting, in view 

 of their interest, that this fragment and that from Burwick 

 were not submitted to expert examination. 



The brochs are supposed to have been in occupation in 

 northern Scotland from the end of the fifth till about the ninth 

 century,and some were occasionally inhabited till a later date. 

 Moreover the antlers of Yarhouse, near Wick, were found not 

 in the broch itself, but in one of the associated outbuildings 

 which were erected at a later date than the main building, 

 when the needs of defence were less imperative. Never- 

 theless a reference in the Orkneyinga Saga carries the last 

 appearance of the Reindeer in North Britain to a much 

 more recent time. I reproduce the literal rendering of the 

 Scandinavian words as translated by a celebrated Icelandic 

 scholar, Mr Eirikr Magnusson, formerly of Cambridge. 

 "It was the custom for the Earls nearly every summer to 



