But, finally, part of the sheep-walks are turned into
 deer preserves. Every one knows that there are no real
 forests in England. The deer in the parks of the great are
 demurely domestic cattle, fat as London aldermen. Scotland
 is therefore the last refuge of the “noble passion.” “In the
 Highlands,” says Somers in 1848, “new forests are springing
 up like mushrooms. Here, on one side of Gaick, you have the
 new forest of Glenfeshie; and there on the other you have
 the new forest of Ardverikie. In the same line you have the
 Black Mount, an immense waste also recently erected. From
 east to west — from the neighbourhood of Aberdeen to
 the crags of Oban — you have now a continuous line of forests; while in other parts of the
 Highlands there are the new forests of Loch Archaig,
 Glengarry, Glenmoriston, &c. Sheep were introduced into
 glens which had been the seats of communities of small
 farmers; and the latter were driven to seek subsistence on
 coarser and more sterile tracks of soil. Now deer are
 supplanting sheep; and these 684are
 once more dispossessing the small tenants, who will
 necessarily be driven down upon still coarser land and to
 more grinding penury. Deer-forests [32] and the people cannot co-exist.
 One or other of the two must yield. Let the forests be
 increased in number and extent during the next quarter of a
 century, as they have been in the last, and the Gaels will
 perish from their native soil... This movement among the
 Highland proprietors is with some a matter of ambition...
 with some love of sport... while others, of a more
 practical cast, follow the trade in deer with an eye solely
 to profit. For it is a fact, that a mountain range laid out
 in forest is, in many cases, more profitable to the
 proprietor than when let as a sheep-walk. ...
 The huntsman who wants a deer-forest limits
 his offers by no other calculation than the extent of his
 purse.... Sufferings have been inflicted in the Highlands
 scarcely less severe than those occasioned by the policy of
 the Norman kings. Deer have received extended ranges, while
 men have been hunted within a narrower and still narrower
 circle.... One after one the liberties of the people have
 been cloven down.... And the oppressions are daily on the
 increase.... The clearance and dispersion of the people is
 pursued by the proprietors as a settled principle, as an
 agricultural necessity, just as trees and brushwood are
 cleared from the wastes of America or Australia; and the
 operation goes on in a quiet, business-like way, &c.”
 [33]