CHAPTER IX 



YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY 



Time was when the Roman soldier hunted the dense 

 forests of North Britain, and counted the Brown Bear 

 as a prize. The echo of those days tells of the Brown 

 Bears of Caledonia being carried to the Courts of Rome 

 to provide sport for the people. These animals, 

 however, had roamed the dense jungles of Northern 

 Britain long before the soldiers of Rome penetrated 

 these Highland forests, and no doubt Brown Bears 

 existed many years after the Roman armies had with- 

 drawn from the land of brown heath. 



Then there were Beavers about the inland waterways 

 in Scotland and towards the southern portions of the 

 British Isles. Tradition asserts that Beavers lived not 

 only in England, but that the animals had pushed their 

 march northwards towards the higher mountain ranges 

 of Scotland. Giraldus refers to the Beaver as fre- 

 quenting one of the rivers of Scotland, while Boece 

 mentions it as being located about the shores of Loch 

 Ness. 



Civilization, even in those rude times, gradually 

 became irksome to the haunters of the brook-edge and 

 sedgy swamps, and almost imperceptibly the Beaver 

 moved backwards to the less frequented districts. By 



80 



