DECREASE OF ANIMAL LIFE ;-; 



passed in 1600, during the reign of James VI, that the 

 " bittour >: was a hawking quarry of the court of that period, 

 since it is specifically protected along with many other birds 

 " sik kynde of fowles commonly used to be chased with 

 halkes" (see p. 203). Further in 1630 Sir Robert Gordon 

 wrote of the northern parts " ther is great store [in Suther- 

 land] of. . . be wters. " 



At the present day in Scotland only a rare straggler of 



Fig. 65. Crane a former inhabitant of Scottish marsh-lands. ^ nat. size. 



the species occurs on migration, the last I have seen being 

 a specimen which having lost its way, was found in Harris 

 in the spring of 1917, starved to death for lack of the main- 

 land marshes where once it could have fed and nested. 



There is also definite evidence of the occurrence in 

 Scotland of the CRANE (Grus grus) (Fig. 65) a heron - 

 like bird distinguished by its fine large wing plumes ior 

 Dr Eagle Clarke identified a limb bone of this bird from the 

 refuse of the Roman station at Newstead near Melrose. 

 That it was a common bird in the Scottish marshes of 



