VII. i 



DECREASE OF ANIMAL LIFE 



IN various ways, cultivation and the ramifications of 

 civilization have tended to limit the numbers of our native 

 animals. In the main this type of influence is due to inter- 

 ference with habits, destruction of breeding haunts and feed- 

 ing grounds, and to a variety of side issues which have arisen 

 through the introduction of the amenities of civilization. The 

 causes which have led to the decrease in numbers, restriction 

 of range or extinction of native creatures, are here discussed 

 in three groups the breaking in of waste land, the reclama- 

 tion of swamps, and the interference of civilization. 



BREAKING IN OF WASTE LAND 



The appearance of Scotland when all the country was 

 forest or moor, wild meadow, swamp or loch, can scarcely 

 be conceived at the present day, so much has cultivation 

 and the breaking in of the "waste" changed its aspect 

 and nature. No change has been so far-reaching in altering 

 the distribution of animal life. Many of the birds which 

 to-day nest on the moorlands once spread over the whole 

 countryside ; many an animal roved in freedom upon the 

 plains which now drags out a meagre existence in the recesses 

 of the hills. It is not easy to trace this change in distribution 

 from historical records, for the early historians were no 

 naturalists, except when they had some "mervaille" to dis- 

 close, and there was nothing to appeal to their imagination 

 in the scarcely noticeable decline of once familiar beasts and 

 birds. Even so, in the sixteenth century Hector Boece re- 

 marked the antipathy between Nature's folk and the proximity 

 of man : 



In all boundis of Scotland, except thay partis quhair continewall habitatioun 

 of peple makis impediment thairto, is gret plente of haris, hartis, Hindis, 

 dayis, rais, wolffis, wild hors, and toddis. 



