for a stag, were, even if halved, more than the sport was really worth, and many men, like myself, preferred the wilder and more novel forms of stalking which the elk, the red deer, and the reindeer of Norway, or the chamois and stags of Central Europe, afforded at a much lower cost. No writer on sport has better descubed the many varieties of big-game hunting, which in various parts of Europe have competed with Scottish deer forests, than Mr. E.N. Buxton in his two charming volumes, Short Stalks; and I believe that the report is correct in thinking that the Scottish forests have seen their maximum of popularhy and rent. During the war, owing to the very high price of meat, and the absence of many owners and tenants, a great many stags and an unusually large number of hinds weie lulled by the older stalkers who remained at home, or by officers temporarily disabled or on furlough, and in one case that I know, the low rent of a well-known stag forest was recouped by the sale of the venison, though it had to be carted thirty miles to a station and sold in London. The diminution in the number of deer between 1914 and 1919 was therefore considerable, and it is probable that the remaining stock, after the severe winters of 1917–18 and 1918–19, was the better for it, owing to the death by starvation of many weak animals. The normal number of deer killed up to 1914 was computed at 6,ooo stags and 5,500 hinds. The Venison Supply Committee in 1916 reported that, in 1916-17, 11,946 deer, weighing 1,600,963 pounds, were lulled, and in the following season 17,500 deer, with a weight of 3,450,000 pounds.
One of the questions which the Commission had to enquire into was the extent to which the forests could be used for grazing of sheep and cattle, and they report that in about one hundred forests steps were taken in this direction during the war, with the result that, in 1916, 5,504 cattle and 58,983 sheep were grazed during the whole or part of the year, and in 1920,6,759 cattle and 106,831 sheep. As I know from my experi¬ ence on large areas rented from peasant proprietors and from Government in Norway, and in the Vorarlberg and Styria, a large number of milking cows arc kept for cheese-making during the summer at Saeters or Alphutten in stone or wooden huts, often many miles distant from the farms. In these they are mainly cared for by women and girls during the three or four months of summer, the men being fully engaged in haymaking at a distance. But these girls, either the daughters of the owners of the cattle or hired, work for almost no wages, and work very hard. It is therefore a question to what extent the old custom of sending young cattle to the shielings might be resumed, and this seems to depend mainly on the possibility of finding land on which to winter the cattle in the neighbour¬ hood ; for, though on the West Coast there are many crofters who are ready enough to summer their young cattle in the forests, if they can get the grazing for a nominal sum, or use the grazing without leave, as they have done in two cases I know in the Hebrides, few large owners seem to have been in a position to stock with their own or the crofters cattle. A list of those who have done so is given in Appendix IX. to the report.
I doubt if it is generally known to owners of deer forests, and it would probably not be agreed to by most foresters, that the presence of cattle during the months of June, July and August, so far from doing harm, is
