8o DEER-STALKING 



pasture of the hills was consumed by the stock which 

 grazed there in summer. Certain favourite spots 

 known as * sheilings ' were no doubt eaten down 

 pretty bare, but the highest hills, where the sweetest 

 grass grows among rugged rocks and boulders, were 

 probably left untouched by any four-footed animal 

 except deer and mountain hares from one end of the 

 year to the other. From this point of view it may 

 almost be affirmed that, in the days of which we are 

 speaking, the whole of the northern part of Scotland 

 might be described as one vast deer forest, though 

 of course the numbers of deer, except in the case of 

 preserved districts, were small in comparison to what 

 is now found even in the most recently formed, and 

 therefore the worst stocked, of existing forests. 



Towards the end of the last and at the beginning 

 of the present century what may be described as a 

 revolution took place in the economy of the High- 

 lands by the introduction of sheep-farming on a scale, 

 and under conditions of management, such as had 

 never previously prevailed or been even thought possi- 

 ble. Under this system many existing deer forests 

 were stocked with sheep, and as the lands which then 

 carried black cattle, with a few goats and small sheep, 

 received similar treatment, and no longer presented to 

 those deer that were in the habit of frequenting them 



