CATTLE IN SCOTLAND 51 



indicated by the frequency of its occurrence, appears to have 

 been in the plains of the eastern coast, especially in the 

 valleys of the Tweed in Roxburghshire, of the Tay in Perth- 

 shire, and in the flat lands of Caithness. Even in later ages, 

 the Urus was still common throughout Scotland, for its 

 remains are abundant in the peat-bogs which accumulated 

 under conditions of great humidity about the time of and 

 subsequent to the arrival of the first Neolithic settlers in 

 Scotland. At this period the headquarters of the race 

 appears to have been in the Lowlands, for although isolated 

 records occur as far north as Belhelvie Moss in Aberdeen- 

 shire, the majority-of the remains have been recovered from 

 Ayrshire, Berwickshire, and particularly from the higher 

 grounds drained by the Tweed and its tributaries. 



The subsequent history of the Giant Ox in Scotland is 

 one of gradual decline, and it is reasonable to assume that 

 the dwindling of the great herds was connected with the 

 appearance of man in the country. Nevertheless, the Urus 

 lingered on in association with man in Scotland for many 

 centuries, being gradually driven northwards into the wilds, 

 until within the confines of the northern counties it finally 

 disappeared. Its remains have been found in juxtaposition 

 with relics of Neolithic man from the Clyde Valley to 

 Caithness: in the former case near the mouth of the Kelvin, 

 in laminated beds of silt where many dug-out canoes, 

 hollowed from solid trunks of oak, have been found, and 

 in the latter, in "horned cairns" belonging to the later 

 period of the Polished Stone Age, at Camster, Ulbster and 

 Clythe. During the succeeding two thousand years, till 

 approximately 1000 B.C., it may have lingered in the Low- 

 lands of Scotland, for in 1781 six skulls were found in a 

 "merle moss" at Whitmuir Hill, Selkirkshire, in the 

 neighbourhood of many " brass axes." The writer of the 

 Statistical Account of the parish of Selkirk actually states 

 that along with the skulls was found "a Roman spear with 

 which these animals were destroyed," but this statement is 

 more than doubtful, for Professor Ewart has found no trace 

 of the Urus amongst the abundant animal remains of the 

 Roman Camp at Newstead near Melrose. It is almost safe 

 to assume, therefore, that long before the Romans invaded 



southern Scotland, in the early centuries of our era, the 



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42 



