128 A VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF THE MORAY BASIN. 



at the same time, many thousands of acres of the older growths 

 have been scientifically conserved, and are now engaged as of 

 old, in self-regeneration, and there seems little fear at the present 

 day, that any repetition of the old wastefulness of our forests will 

 be permitted.^ 



If we continue the older accounts of this destruction to the 

 forests of Scotland, and trace them down, we find that the evidence 

 of former growth, death, or denudation from various causes are 

 very apparent at the present day. Large areas for instance 

 of eighty-year-old pine have been cut along the Strath at 

 many parts of Spey, such as at Boat of Garten. At the 

 old woods of Crannach on the Dulnan, quantities of old pine 

 were consumed by fire not more than two or three years ago, 

 when the heather was being burned, and, in 1892, a large area of 

 young pine upon the estates of Sir John Eamsden, and near 

 Belleville, was similarly destroyed. Far up among the glens 

 natural old age and decay, fire, or reckless and indiscriminate use 

 of the axe, and utter want of conservation, have left their unmis- 

 takable traces behind. People still living can remember High- 

 landers from Nethy bringing hampers full of live-pine splints on 

 pony -back across the Ladder Hills of Livet to sell at the large 

 markets of Huntly and even Aberdeen ; and others still earlier, 

 can remember a man going one day from Suidh in Glenlivet in 

 order to cut and square a baulk of timber in Abernethy, and 

 returning next day with it at the heels of his Highland pony, 

 perhaps to * big his wee housie wi',' the day after. This practice was 

 common to all the people in the glen, and the old path, by which 

 these logs were brought out of the forest into the Carn District, is 

 still known as ' the Timmer Eoad,' and is still looked upon as a 



^ Mr. David Nairn, already quoted, tells us, in his most interesting account 

 of the Highland Woods, that in Inverness-shire itself, there are 163,000 acres of 

 woods, and on the Seafield property the greatest planting experiment on record 

 is to be found — some 50,000 acres. The county contains 60,000 acres more of 

 wood than any other county in Scotland. A useful table in Mr. Nairn's article 

 shows the comparative acreages of Scotland in the four years, 1812, 1872, 18S1, 

 and 1888, and the proportions of wood in the nine most importantly wooded 

 counties of Scotland. 



