THE WOLT. 163 
Aird, that they were exterminated out of their prin- 
cipal hold in that range. According to the Wardlaw 
MS., ‘she was a stout bold woman, a great huntress; 
she would have travelled in our hills a-foot, and 
perhaps outwearied good footmen. She purged Mount 
Caplach of the Wolves.” Mount Caplach is the 
highest range of the Aird running parallel to the 
Beauly Frith, behind Moniach and Lentron. Though 
the place of the lady’s seat is now forgotten, its 
existence is still remembered, and said to have been 
at a pass where she sat when the woods were driven 
for the Wolves, not only to see them killed, but to 
shoot at them with her own arrows. The period of 
her repression of the Wolves is indicated by the suc- 
cession of her husband to the lordship of Lovat, 
which was in 1450, and it is therefore probable that 
the “purging” of Mount Caplach was begun soon 
after that date.* 
Such partial expulsions, however, had little effect 
upon the general “herd ” of Wolves, which, fostered 
by the great Highland forests, increased at intervals 
to an alarming extent. During the reign of James 
IV. (1488-1513), rewards continued to be paid for 
the slaughter of Wolves in Scotland, and we learn 
the value of a Wolf’s head in those days from the 
accounts of the Lord High Treasurer.t For in- 
* MS. History of the Frasers, in the hbrary of Lord Lovat (p. 44). 
Also the curious account of the North Highlands called the Wardlaw 
MS. in the possession of Mr, Thompson, Inverness (p. 67). 
+ Extracts from these accounts will be found in Pitcairn’s “ Criminal 
Trials in Scotland,” vol. i. p. 116. 
M 
