224 TRANSACTIONS, NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 



made the journey to Britain, and these regions, and lived about 

 the middle of the fourth century before Christ, I myself think it 

 doubtful, or he would not have mixed up two animals, or have 

 transcribed the description of them from Pyiheas. As regards 

 Boethius, it is strange that credence was given to his description 

 of lion-like bulls. He tells us in his '• Historv," which contains 

 the account of the lion-like bulls, that "in the year of God 1510 

 a very strange animal came out of Gairloch, in Argyle, as ' meikel 

 as ane grewhound,' with feet like ' ganer,' and that great trees 

 were struck down by 'dint of her tail.' She killed three men 

 (hunters) with ' three strakes of her tail,' and that if the 

 ' remaunt hunters ' had not ' clam up in a Strang aikis' they would 

 have been 'all slain in same manner.'" If the story of the lion- 

 like bulls is accepted, why is that of the feminine grewhound 

 rejected ?i 



Anyway, in the passage about wild lion-like bulls, Hector 

 Boece himself says that the wild white cattle are exceedingly 

 like the ordinarv tame or domestic breed, and that their flesh is 

 very pleasant food, and much approved of by the nobility. Here, 

 I think, we find one reason whv these white cattle have been 

 preserved, namely, that their flesh was much approved of by the 

 nobility in olden days. Many illustrations can be given in support 

 of this point. As it is often claimed that Cadzow Forest is a part of 

 Boece's Caledonian Forest, and the white cattle there the descend- 

 ants of his lion-like bulls, I would direct attention to a report in the 

 Glasgow Herald of a paper by Mr. Hugh Boyd Watt, on "Scottish 

 Forests as they appear in early historic times,"read before the Ander- 

 sonian Naturalists' Society. Mr. Watt, in his paper, pointed out 

 that (so far as the word " forest " is to be taken as meaning a piece 

 of woodland or a tree-clad district, and not a chase or hunting 

 ground lying in waste) it seems clear that our native forests had 

 passed their maximum size and density at the dawn of history in 

 Scotland. Evidence in support of this is chiefly furnished by the 

 widespread distribution of our peat bogs and mosses, in which 

 many remains of forest trees, mostly oaks and birch, are to be 



^ Gesner gives an illustration which appears to be that of au ordinary 

 greyhound, and writes "Canls Scoticus Venaticus, quern Scoti vocant anc 

 grewhound, id est canem Grsecum." 



