ALLOA TO SKYE. 351 



his horns, which were ten and a-half inches in height. 

 The length from his neck-vein to the root of his tail 

 was five-feet-eight ; so that with these data and a bone 

 a Professor of Geology should have no difficulty in 

 building one to order. Some are generally killed every 

 yearfor the poor; but they have been occasionally used, 

 and liked, in Hamilton Palace. They are always shot, 

 and fetched away after the commotion occasioned by 

 the fall has subsided ; but stalking them is no easy 

 task. The bulls go in front, with the leader in the 

 centre, and the calves between them and the cows; 

 and if at all pressed, they come thundering on like 

 a charge of Life Guards. A young calf has been 

 sometimes found by itself, and carried off to the farm 

 to be fed ; but it is a perilous task, and the calf be- 

 gins butting at two days' old, and seldom grows milder 

 with handling. 



As for the Wood of Caledon, the Romans are re- 

 puted to have cut it down, to drive out the Celts ; and 

 oak-trees have been found, with canoes and the re- 

 mains of a whale, in the Vale of Monteith, as well as 

 Flanders Moss. . Once upon a time, there was six to 

 fifteen feet depth of bog earth, but it has been floated 

 away, and the fine clay beneath forms the surface of 

 a carse which chiefly grows wheat and beans. About 

 Strathblane the scene changes to the old grass of the 

 dairy districts, which keep Ayrshires for the supply of 

 Glasgow, and send in their milk tubs morning and 

 evening by rail to the Clyde side at Dumbarton. 

 Buchanan Castle, the seat of the Duke of Montrose, 



