THE WILD CAT OF SCOTLAND 69 



Valvata, and Cyclas, all at present existing in Scotland. A 

 considerable portion appear to have died young, few attaining 

 a state of maturity, and many are entirely decomposed. In 

 or on these deposits are found the osseous remains of animals, 

 as previously stated. According to the same authority, these 

 bones could not have been embedded by the action of rivers 

 or floods ; and the expanse of water was originally so con- 

 fined that the smallest animals could have crossed by 

 swimming from shore to shore. Deer, and such species as 

 take readily to the water, may have been mired when landing 

 where the bottom was soft and quaggy ; other species, Lyell 

 supposes, may have fallen in when crossing the frozen surface, 

 and this may account for the scarcity of the bones of the 

 Wild Cat. At any rate, some were there to testify that it 

 had migrated as far north as Forfarshire in very early pre- 

 historic times, and would gradually extend its range through- 

 out the country as the means of its existence increased. 



The late Edward Alston, in his introduction to the 

 fauna of Scotland, says " that the absence of the known 

 fossil fauna of Scotland and Ireland, and of most of the charac- 

 teristic post-Pliocene English animals, shows that the northern 

 migration of these forms was slow, and gradually advancing 

 as the glacial conditions of the northern parts of our island 

 decreased in intensity. Thus it is not difficult to suppose 

 that the hedgehog, ermine, badger, squirrel, and mountain 

 hare may have found their way into Ireland from southern 

 Scotland long before they were able to penetrate into the 

 sub-arctic regions of the Highlands, which they did not 

 accomplish until a further improvement in the climate had 

 taken place." 



In historic times there is no allusion to the Wild Cat in 

 Scotland until the early part of the sixteenth century, 

 although in England this animal is often mentioned in old 

 documents of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, either as 

 a beast of the chase or as vermin. In Sir Robert Lindsay's 

 " Chronicles of Scotland " (vol. ii. p. 348), published in 1528, 

 there is an account of a great hunt and entertainment given by 

 the Earl of Athol to James V., in which a great number of 

 all sorts were killed, and among them certain " small beastes 

 such as roe, woulffs, foxes, and wyld cattis." And, a century 



