Collins New Naturalist Library
6
Natural History in the Highlands and Islands
F. Fraser Darling
D.Sc. F.R.S.E.
With 46 Colour Photographs By F. Fraser Darling, John Markham and Others, 55 Black-and-White Photographs and 24 Maps and Diagrams
TO THE MEMORY OF
WILLIAM ORR, F.R.C.V.S.
† Singapore, December 1945
KENNETH McDOUGALL, M.Sc., M.R.C.V.S.
† Normandy, August 1944
WHO KNEW AND LOVED THE HIGHLANDS AND ISLANDS
AND THE WILD LIFE THEREIN
JAMES FISHER M.A.
JOHN GILMOUR M.A.
JULIAN S. HUXLEY M.A. D.Sc. F.R.S.
L. DUDLEY STAMP B.A. D.Sc.
PHOTOGRAPHIC EDITOR:
ERIC HOSKING F.R.P.S.
The aim of this series is to interest the general reader in the wild life of Britain by recapturing the inquiring spirit of the old naturalist. The Editors believe that the natural pride of the British public in the native fauna and flora, to which must be added concern for their conservation, is best fostered by maintaining a high standard of accuracy combined with clarity of exposition in presenting the results of modern scientific research. The plants and animals are described in relation to their homes and habitats and are portrayed in the full beauty of their natural colours, by the latest methods of colour photography and reproduction.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1 GEOLOGY AND CLIMATE
CHAPTER 2 RELIEF AND SCENERY
CHAPTER 3 RELIEF AND SCENERY (continued)
CHAPTER 4 THE HUMAN FACTOR AND REMARKABLE CHANGES IN POPULATIONS OF ANIMALS
CHAPTER 5 THE DEER FOREST GROUSE MOOR AND SHEEP FARM
CHAPTER 6 THE LIFE HISTORY OF THE RED DEER
CHAPTER 7 THE PINE FOREST, BIRCH WOOD AND OAK WOOD
CHAPTER 8 THE SUMMITS OF THE HILLS
CHAPTER 9 THE SHORE, THE SEA LOCH AND THE SHALLOW SEAS
CHAPTER 10 THE SUB-OCEANIC ISLAND
CHAPTER 11 THE LIFE HISTORY OF THE ATLANTIC GREY SEAL
CHAPTER 12 FRESH WATERS: LOCHS AND RIVER SYSTEMS
Maps showing the distribution of certain animals in the highlands
FOR MANY years Dr. F. Fraser Darling has found his field of work in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. One of his pioneer researches was into the social behaviour of a herd of red deer, in an area of Wester Ross dominated by the massif of An Teallach. In 1936 he began the first of two seasons’ work on Priest Island of the Summer Isles, studying the social structure of gull colonies and of small flocks of grey lag geese and other gregarious birds. It was from this work that Dr. Darling was led to enunciate his theory connecting the size of a social group of gregarious animals, with its breeding-time, and breeding-success. Statistical analysis and further observation by other workers have confirmed this theory and shown it to be of wide biological importance. Darling then made protracted autumn and winter visits to Lunga of the Treshnish Isles, and to North Rona, in order to study a further type of animal sociality, that of the Atlantic grey seal, an animal of whose life history we knew surprisingly little. He also worked his small farm on Tanera in the Summer Isles in such fashion as to show that it was possible and reasonable to raise considerably the stock-carrying capacity of the West Highlands and to grow a large amount of human food under crofting conditions.
Fraser Darling is a born naturalist, was brought up to farming, and became a scientist as thoroughly and quickly as academic discipline permitted. His first researches (at the Institute of Animal Genetics, Edinburgh University) were on the Scottish Mountain Blackface breed of sheep. He combines the qualities of a trained biologist and practical farmer with those of a sensitive field observer. As a humanist he is considering the Highland problem with none of the peculiar obsessions with which it has so often been approached: some Highland countrymen believe only in sport, or stalking, or sheep: others believe that no problem is more important than crofting, or water power, or the tourist industry, or the collecting of rare alpine plants. Fraser Darling’s sympathies are with all the interesting problems of living things in the Highlands, not least with the human species which—in this wild part of Britain where man is in such close contact with the natural physical environment—must be regarded in relation to the others. It is in this spirit that he is interpreting his present work as Director of the West Highland Survey.
In this book, which is the first effort, so far as we are aware, to give a picture of Highland natural history as a whole, Dr. Darling has, naturally,