ii 



PREFACE. 



I hope in our previous efforts the late Mr. T. E. 

 Bucklev and I have impressed the fact that we have 

 always been desirous of reaching, so to speak, " bed-rock " 

 in our investigations, though we may not at all times 

 have succeeded. But to reach the "bed-rock of truth" 

 is not child's play, as most men know who have really 

 tried ; and they know also what immense waste of energy 

 there is in shovelling away the top-dressings and accumula- 

 tions of less adhesive matter which cover it up. 



In this, our series, we have looked upon it as our busi- 

 ness to condense the past chronology and notice what is 

 most worthy of repetition and accentuation — what was 

 true when it was written, and which is either true still, or 

 has been altered or modified by time. We have also en- 

 deavoured to indicate where previous error may be noted 

 and avoided in future, and, as present chroniclers, where 

 we have had reasonable doubts, by the use of square 

 brackets. 



Many changes have taken place ; and we have tried to 

 show something of the^progress of such changes, and their 

 causes. We can go back and trace finger-posts through- 

 out our chronology in the writings of those preceding us. 

 In this way Col. Drummond Hay often speaks of the causes 

 of disappearance of species ; for instance the reclamation of 

 land, drainage of the lower moorlands and slopes, filling 

 up of " carse-ditches," silting up of tidal flats, changes 

 in the course of even the parent stream of the Tay, 

 etc. And we also find alterations in forestry — in planting 

 of great areas of mountain-slopes and heather-ground on 

 the one hand, and on the other, the destruction to older 



