HIGHLAND DEER AND SHEEP.
“The last Deer of Beann Doran.”
A note to a poem, with this title, by John Hay Allan, Esq., relates, that in former times the barony of Glen Urcha was celebrated for the number and the superior race of its deer. When the chieftains relinquished their ancient character and their ancient sports, and sheep were introduced into the country, the want of protection, and the antipathy of the deer to the intruding animals, gradually expelled the former from the face of the country, and obliged them to retire to the most remote recesses of the mountains. Contracted in their haunts from corrai to corrai, the deer of Glen Urcha at length wholly confined themselves to Beann Doran, a mountain near the solitary wilds of Glen Lyon, and the vast and desolate mosses which stretch from the Black Mount to Loch Ranach. In this retreat they continued for several years; their dwelling was in a lonely corrai at the back of the hill, and they were never seen in the surrounding country, except in the deepest severity of winter, when, forced by hunger and the snow, a straggler ventured down into the straiths. But the hostility which had banished them from their ancient range, did not respect their last retreat. The sheep continually encroached upon their bounds, and contracted their resources of subsistence. Deprived of the protection of the laird, those which ventured from their haunt were cut off without mercy or fair chase; while want of range, and the inroads of poachers, continually diminished their numbers, till at length the race became extinct.
About the time of the disappearance of the deer from these wilds, an immense stag was one evening seen standing upon the side of Beann Donachan. He remained for some time quietly gazing towards the lake, and at length slowly descended the hill, and was crossing the road at Stronnmilchon, when he was discovered by some herdsmen of the hamlet. They immediately pursued him with their cooleys; and the alarm being given, the whole straith, men, women, and children, gathered out to the pursuit. The noble animal held them a severe chase till, as he passed through the copse on the north side of Blairachuran, his antlers were entangled in the boughs, he was overtaken by the pursuers, and barbarously slaughtered by the united onset, and assault of dogs, hay-forks, and “Sgian an Dubh.” When divided, he proved but a poor reward for the fatigue; for he was so old, that his flesh was scarcely eatable. From that time the deer were seen no more in Beann Doran; and none now appear in Glen Urcha, except when, in a hard winter, a solitary stag wanders out of the forest of Dalness, and passes down Glen Strae or Corrai Fhuar.
The same cause which had extirpated the deer from Glen Urcha has equally acted in most part of the Highlands. Wherever the sheep appear, their numbers begin to decrease, and at length they become totally extinct. The reasons of this apparently singular consequence is, the closeness with which the sheep feed, and which, where they abound, so consumes the pasturage, as not to leave sufficient for the deer: still more is it owing to the unconquerable antipathy which these animals have for the former. This dislike is so great, that they cannot endure the smell of their wool, and never mix with them in the most remote situations, or where there is the most ample pasturage for both. They have no abhorrence of this kind to cattle, but, where large herds of these are kept, will feed and lie among the stirks and steers with the greatest familiarity.