Xll. 
B?~itish Deer Heads. 
Holinshed speaks of the " continual huntinge '" ot the ancient Highlanders. In 
" Collectanea de Rebus Albanicis " a letter is given under the Privy Seal of James VI. 
appointing Donald Farquharson in Braemar, Keeper of the King's Forests of Braemar, 
Cromar and Strath Dee (1584), giving him, among other powers, the right to " serche, 
seik, tak & apprehend " anyone repairing to these places " with bowis, culveringis, 
nettis or ony uther instrument meit & convenient for the destruction of the deir & the 
mure fowlis." There is also given an interesting contract made between Colin Earl of 
Seaforth, Simon Lord Fraser of Lovat, Hector Munro of Clynes, John Chisholm of Comer, 
John Grant of Glenmoriston and John Bayne of Tulloch, and others of their respective 
names, for the preservation of the deer and roe on their several estates, and the punish- 
ment of trespassers (1628). They bound themselves and their tenants by solemn writ 
to protect their deer, doe and roe, " the stealing of which is appointed to be punished 
as theft, and the shooting of which is appointed to be punished with death and escheat 
of their goods moveable." 
Many of the forests which are well known at the present day, such as Athole, Mar, 
Gaick, the Blackmount and others, were equally famous then. Athole is one of the 
oldest of the Scottish deer forests and its praises have been sung by Scrope in his " Art 
of Deerstalking." Dalness, or the Royal forest, is also very ancient, having been 
afforested in the reign of James IV. of Scotland. The usual method of killing deer in 
those days was by enormous drives, or tainchel as they were called, and we read of 
James V. passing out of Edinburgh with twelve thousand men and killing eighteen score 
harts. Next year he went ro hunt in Athole, where " thirty score of hart & hynd " died 
the death. Later on Queen Mary of Scotland conducted her drives on an equally large 
scale in Athole, Mar, Badenoch and Moray, killing three hundred and sixty deer and 
other beasts. 
John Taylor, the water poet as he styled himself, who was born at Gloucester in 
1580, walked from London to Scotland in the year 1618. He was entertained by the 
Earl of Mar, and was present at a big hunt, which he described as follows : " The 
manner of the hunting is this — five or six hundred men do rise early in the morning, 
& they do disperse themselves divers ways, & seven, eight, or ten miles' compass, they 
do bring or chase in the deer in many herds (two, three, or four hundred in a herd) to such 
or such a place as the noblemen shall appoint them ; then, when day is come, the lords 
& gentlemen of their companies do ride or go to the said places, sometimes wading up 
to the middle through burns & rivers, & then they being come to the place, do lie down 
on the ground, till those foresaid scouts, which are said the Tinchell, do bring down 
the deer ; but as the proverb says of a bad cook, so these tinkell men do lick their own 
fingers : for besides their bows & arrows which they carry with them, we can hear now 
& then a harquebuss or musket go off, which they do seldom discharge in vain. Then 
after we had laid there three hours or thereabouts, we might perceive the deer appear 
on the hills round about us, (their heads making a shew like a wood,) which being 
followed close by the tinchell, are chased down into the valley where we lay ; then all 
the valley on each side being waylaid with an hundred couple of greyhounds, they are 
all let loose as occasion serves upon the herd of deer, that with dogs, guns, arrows, dirks, 
