2 26 Notes on Sport and Travel i 



march between the parishes of Farr and Reay, called 

 Loch Soivy,^ which has an island reputed, in former 

 ages, as a place of resort and shelter for wolves. 

 At the period referred to, about the close of the 

 seventeenth century, one of the tenants of Trantle- 

 more in Halladale, named Eric-Bain Mackay, is said 

 to have wandered alone in search of a wolf, which, 

 in consequence of depredations committed on his 

 farm, he believed to be lurking in his neighbourhood. 

 The reputed shelter afforded to animals of prey by 

 the wild grounds around Loch Soivy induced him 

 to approach the loch, and in his eagerness to make 

 a complete search in that suspicious neighbourhood, 

 he swam to the island, and contrived to carry his 

 gun along with him ; he there discovered marks of 

 a wolf having been recently on the island, and after- 

 wards found its den in which were two young cubs. 

 He instantly killed them, and carried them home- 

 wards along with him, as evidence of his success, 

 although the danger of meeting the dam, and being 

 exposed to the well-known desperate fierceness of a 

 she-wolf deprived of her young, occurred to him, and 

 induced him to retreat as speedily as possible. He 

 knew that the old wolf would not be long absent 

 from her den ; and during his hurried progress 

 towards the strath in which he lived, he cast many 

 an anxious look towards the loch and along the wide 



1 Soivy is synonymous with Foick ; both Gaelic words signify the 

 unclean bed or den of a fox, wolf, or similar wild animal. The words, 

 especially Foick, are sarcastically applied to a filthy or neglected 

 habitation or apartment. 



