SCOTTISH FORESTS IN EARLY TIMES. 95 



thorns." 1 Here are a series of further definite statements. The 

 Torwood is called a remnant of the ancient Caledonian Forest, and 

 Fannyside Moor (Cumbernauld) was occupied to a comparatively 

 recent period by a remnant of the ancient Caledonian Forest. 2 Dal- 

 rymple Wood (Ayrshire) is supposed to be part of the ancient Cale- 

 donian Forest; the Black Wood of Rannoch, a relic of the original 

 forests of Scotland, is the only important remains of the great 

 h Caledonian Forest, and Gorthly (Perthshire) was originally part 

 of the old Caledonian Forest. 3 Invergarry deer-forest is one of 

 the remaining patches of the original Caledonian Forest which 

 formerly covered a large area in the north of Scotland. 4 " Upper 

 Strathspey would, in remote times, form about the centre of the 

 great Caledonian Forest which is said to have extended from Glen- 

 lyon and Rannoch to Strathspey and Strathglass, and from Glencoe 

 eastward to the Braes of Mar." 5 Then we have the following 

 picture : — " There can be no reasonable doubt, and present 

 evidences prove, that the great old Caledonian Forest reached far 

 beyond the Great Glen and Loch Ness into Ross-shire, Sutherland 

 and West Inverness-shire, spreading its ramifications far over the 

 passes, and even over the cols of the backbone of Scotland, down 

 the western slopes towards the Atlantic, joined hands with the 

 Black Wood of Rannoch, struggled across the dividing ranges of 

 Dee and Forfarshire, and penetrated eastward beyond the Deveron 

 into Buchan and north-east Aberdeenshire." 6 



Numerous general statements are made, such as that " the 

 whole island was one vast forest," 7 but I have confined my 

 extracts to those writers who definitely mention the name of the 

 Caledonian Forest, and under their descriptive hands it has spread 

 so as to extend from Galloway and Selkirk to Sutherland, and 

 from Lochaber and west Inverness-shire to Buchan and Aberdeen- 

 shire. It is an instructive example of the growth and development 



1 Trans. Dumfries and Galloway Nat. Hist, and Anliq. Socy., No. 12, 



P- 135- 



2 Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland. 



3 Hunter's Woods, Forests and Estates of Perthshire. 



4 Watkin Watkins's Trans. Caradoc and S. V. Field Club, I., No. 4, p. 160. 



5 D. Nairne's Notes on Scottish Forestry, p. 23. 



6 J. A. Harvie-Brown and T. E. Buckley's Vertebrate Fauna of Moray, I., 



p. 130. 



7 Nairne's Notes, p. II. 



