208 THE GREAT BUSTARD. 



humanum aspectum plurimum obhorrens ; nuda humo ova 

 ponit ; quae si ab homine contrectata, aut ejus anhelitu et 

 afflatu vel leviter imbuta senserit (quod facile naturae bene- 

 ficio dignoscit) extemplo veluti inidonea ad pullos procre- 

 andos relinquens, alio ad ova parienda se confer t." 



Although it is probable that during the time of the 

 Britons and Saxons Berwickshire was a well-wooded district, 

 yet it appears that a few centuries later, in the reign of 

 William the Lion, its woods, which formerly had been widely 

 spread over the surface of the country, were confined to the 

 sheltered valleys and ravines, 1 the general face of the country 

 being comparatively bare of trees. The wide plain which 

 lies between the Tweed on the south and the Lammermuir 

 Hills on the north, extending to upwards of one hundred 

 thousand acres, 2 and now known as the Merse, would then 

 be a vast waste of heather mingled with pasture, and inter- 

 spersed with impenetrable bogs and morasses, the haunt 

 of the wolf 3 and the wild boar, 4 some traditions of which 

 still linger in the county. Here and there on some preci- 

 pice, or at the side of a marsh, but widely apart, would 

 be seen the square fortlets of the landholders, surrounded 

 by the rude villages which sprang up under their walls. 

 Patches of the drier grounds only would be cultivated 

 by the scanty inhabitants, whose cattle and sheep would 

 browse in the vicinity of their dwellings. 5 In this wild 

 district the Great Bustard would roam along with the red 



1 See Carr's History of Coldingham Priory, pp. 24, 25. 



2 Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland, by Francis Groome, 1885. 



3 History of the Wolf in Scotland, by James Hardy, Hist. Ber. Nat. Club, 

 vol. iv. p. 291. 



4 See Old Statistical Account of Scotland, 1793, vol. vi. p. 322. 



5 Mr. John Wilson, late of Edington Mains, in his report on The Farming in 

 the East and North-Eastern Districts of Scotland, written in 1878, says at p. 23 : 

 " As our grandfathers saw it, the whole country, with the most trifling exceptions, 

 was unenclosed ; there was scarcely such a thing as a plantation of trees ; there was 

 no artificial drainage, and what tillage existed was restricted to the naturally dry 

 land ; the hollow parts were full of bogs, marshes, and stagnant pools." 



