SCOTLAND AS MAN FOUND IT 21 



Wolf. In all likelihood, the marshes resounded to the boom 

 of the Bittern, and the plains to the breeding calls of the 

 Crane and the Great Bustard. Yet the naturalist of the 

 present day, could he be transported back to these far times, 

 would notice strange blanks in the fauna. Many of the pests 

 of our modern crops and woodlands were absent, for civiliza- 

 tion and the easy communication of later ages have brought 

 multitudes of noxious insects and other plagues in their 

 train. We can scarcely imagine the golden days when the 

 crops of the husbandman were free from the ravages of the 

 Rabbit, and his stores secure from the depredations of Rats. 

 Yet so these were, for, with many another nuisance, man 

 introduced these pests, as he did also his domestic Oxen and 

 Horses, Sheep and Goats, Dogs and Cats, domestic Fowls 

 and Pheasants, in times that followed on the discovery of 

 the new land of Caledonia. 



