6 THE WOLF IN SCOTLAND 



erect refuges for the safety of travellers over- 

 taken by night, which were termed ' Spittals,' 

 hence probably ' Spittal of Glenshee ' and other 

 places similarly named. 1 Taylor, the Water 

 Poet, travelling on foot through Scotland in 

 1618, says of the country traversed in going to 

 Braemar, that for long he saw no animals but 

 ' deer, wild horses, wolves, and such-like 

 creatures.' Bellenden, in his translation of 

 Hector Boece (1536), also notes 'wild hors ' 

 along with the ' Wolffis ' in the Caledonian 

 forests ; and says of the wolves that they were 

 ' rycht noysum to the tame bestial in all parts of 

 Scotland.' Sir Robert Gordon, 2 says that the 

 forests then were ' full of reid deer and roes, 

 Woulffs, foxes, wyld catts, brocks, skyurells, 

 whittrets, weasels, otters martrixes, hares and 

 fumarts'; and in 1621 the reward paid in that 

 county for killing a wolf was, by Statute, 

 6 135. 4d. ; 'Scots' no doubt. 1 



The exact date of the extinction of the wolf 

 in Scotland is doubtful. The great forests 

 which had covered so much of the country had 

 dwindled almost to the vanishing point. The 

 cause of this is an open question, as to which 



1 Harting, Extinct British Animals. 



2 Genealogical History of the Earldom of Sutherland from its 

 origin to the year 1630. 



