92 SCOTTISH FORESTS IN EARLY TIMES. 



open spaces, and they possessed horses and herds of cattle which 

 required ample pasture-land. Such an opinion finds further 

 support by the fact that the Romans called one particular portion 

 of the country " Sylva Caledonia " (Pliny IV. 30) or " Caledonias 

 Silva " — the Caledonian Forest — and to a sketch of the history of 

 this I now proceed. 



Here it may be necessary to point out that the word " forest " 

 does not imply a wooded place, but that its meaning is more that 

 of an extensive chase — hunting and sporting grounds lying in 

 waste — where trees may occur, but they are not necessary to 

 constitute the place a " forest." Such a meaning is illustrated in 

 the present-day deer-forests of our Highlands, many of which are 

 barren and waste wildernesses, without a piece of woodland 

 contained in them. From the earliest time the meaning of this 

 word has been misunderstood evidently ; and Skene points out J 

 that the Latin translator of Ptolemy's Greek expression "Caledonios 

 drumos" converted the unknown word "drumos" into a word 

 signifying an oak-wood — Caledonius Saltus or the Caledonian 

 Wood. " Drumos " is a rendering of the Gaelic word " druim " = 

 a ridge, and the expression (Caledonios drumos) is the equivalent 

 of the historical name Drumalban, which was applied to the chain 

 of hills forming the backbone of Scotland. Part of this name 

 appears in the now current name of these mountains and of the 

 district — Braedalbane. Professor Rhys, however, says {Celtic 

 Britain, p. 224) that there is no occasion to suppose Ptolemy 

 to have meant Drumalban by his expression " Caledonios drumos." 

 Whatever may have been the exact meaning of the old names, 

 I propose continuing to call the locality the Caledonian Forest, 

 and to endeavour to point out that at first it had a definite 

 geographical extent. 



In Ptolemy's map one of the few topographical details is this 

 great " Caledonias Silva," and, as there is no other " Silva" marked 

 in the map, which includes the whole of the British Isles, it 

 cannot be an error to believe that the locality was pre-eminently 

 woodland to the eyes of the Romans, so far as their knowledge of 

 the country at that time went. In the copy of this map, from the 

 Latin Ptolemy of 1478, in Elton's Origins of English History 



1 Celtic Scotland, I., p. 76. 



