100 SCOTLAND AND ITS PAST. 



who lived in the twelfth century, speaks of the Uri 

 Sylvestris, which in his time inhabited great forests 

 in the neighborhood of London; and in the four- 

 teenth century King Robert Bruce was nearly slain 

 by a wild bull which attacked him in the great Cale- 

 don Wood. 6 



Boethius, 6 who was born in 1470, and John Leslie, 

 Bishop of Ross, who wrote in 1598, 7 state that the 

 wild cattle of Scotland were white with a thick mane ; 

 and Leslie expressly states were wild and savage, 

 and formerly abounded in the Caledonian Woods, but 

 now were confined to the region about Sterling, 

 Cumbarnauld, and Kincardine. 



At this period civilization had made some progress 

 in the country, the Lowlands at least ; and food, judg- 

 ing from fragments of history, was bountiful and 

 cheap. In 1290 the monasteries of Teviotdale had 

 much pasture land, and the minute and careful ar- 

 rangement of their mountain pastures, of the folds for 

 their sheep, and the byres for their cattle, and the 

 lodges or temporary dwellings for their attendants, 

 show that they paid the greatest attention to this 

 part of their extensive farming. 8 Again in 1300, from 

 excerpts 9 from the reign of Alexander III, we have 

 it stated that the fields, the mountain pastures, and 

 the forests were amply stocked with cows, sheep, 

 and large herds of swine ; and even more minutely, 10 



6 Cosmography and Description of Albion, quoted in Enc. Brit, xiv, 214. 

 Annals and Mag. of Nat. Hist., vol. ii, 1839, p. 281 ; vol. iv, 1849, p. 424. 



7 Low's Animals, p. 234, 



* Innes' Scotland in the Middle Ages, p. 147. 

 Tyler's Hist. Scotland, ii, 218, 

 " Tyler, op, cit. p. 221. 



