IX. 2 



SOME FINAL CONCLUSIONS 



INCREASE IN NUMBERS 



THE most striking result of a broad comparison between the 

 animal inhabitants of Scotland at the time of the coming of 

 man and at the present day, is the discovery that the total num- 

 ber of living things should have so markedly increased. It is 

 true that when we cast back to the animal assemblage of the 

 New Stone Age, with its Reindeer and Elk, its Brown Bear, 

 Lynx and Wolf, its Lemming and Arctic Vole, our first 

 impression is one of present day loss and meagreness ; we 

 feel that a once varied and interesting fauna has become 

 thin and dull. The first impression has some justification. 

 Yet as a matter of fact the fauna as a whole has gained both 

 in numbers and variety owing to man's presence and inter- 

 ference. 



To what extent did the "original fauna" found in Scot- 

 land by man when he arrived some 7000 years before the 

 Christian era, differ in numbers from that of the present 

 day ? The question is no simple one to answer, but some 

 general indications may be gathered. The undisturbed 

 natural fauna was a sparse one compared with the fauna of 

 to-day, that is to say, each animal, vegetarian or carnivore, 

 then required on an average a larger extent of territory to 

 support it. In many of their " forests " Red Deer still, to a 

 great extent, live upon the natural produce of the land. 

 How are they distributed? Take Mr Henry Evans's account 

 of the Red Deer of Jura. In one forest of 7000 acres (the 

 Inner District), he found 426 hinds, 80 calves and 250 stags, 

 in another of 9000 acres only 170 hinds, 80 calves and 250 

 stags; in the former 10 acres supported a deer, but this was 

 in the best breeding ground of the island, in the latter each 

 deer required 18 acres. The whole area of the Jura deer 

 forests, 27,506 acres, carried 2002 Red Deer of all sorts, so 

 that over this extensive region, roughly 14 acres were 



