1 16 DELIBERATE DESTRUCTION OF ANIMAL LIFE 



to the story, reigned two centuries before the Christian era, 

 " ordaint," according to Boece, 



he slayer of ane wolf to have ane ox to his reward, pure elders persewit 

 this beist with gret hatreut, for the gret murdir of beistis done be the sarnin. 



tThere is the less need for such a detailed history since a very 

 complete account of the Wolf in Scotland appears in Mr 

 J. E. Harting's British Animals Extinct within Historic 

 Times, and in Mr R. S. Fittis's Sports and Pastimes of 

 Scotland. I shall content myself, therefore, with tracing 

 the main stages of man's interference with this ravager of 

 the flocks. 



Throughout all the ages the Wolf was reckoned a grievous 

 pestilence, and even the popularity of a King reflected in 

 some degree his attitude towards this plague. Thus when, 

 as Boece tells, Edeir, a Scottish contemporary of Julius 

 Caesar visited "all the boundis of his realme," his 



passaige was the mair plesand to his nobillis, that he was gevin to hunting; 

 for he delitit in no thing more than in chais of wild beistis, with houndis 

 and rachis, and specially of wolffis, for they ar noisum to tame bestiall. 

 This regioun, throw the cauld humouris thairof, ingeneris wolffis of feirs 

 and cruel nature. 



The fierceness of Scottish Wolves is attested by many an 

 old story. Witness that of the pursuit of Malcolm II in 

 1010 in the forest of the Stocket, on the bounds of the 

 city of Aberdeen, when the monarch was saved from a 

 Wolf only by the presence of mind of a younger son of 

 Donald of the Isles, who was rewarded for his timely aid 

 by a present of the neighbouring lands of Skene. Even to 

 the islands the scourge extended, for Arnor, the Earl's skald, 

 tells in the Orkneyinga Saga, that after the Battle of Water- 

 firth between the invading Norse and the islanders of Skye, 

 in the eleventh century, 



There I saw the grey wolf gaping 

 O'er wounded corse of many a man. 



Many methods were employed to keep the Wolves in 

 check. It is significant that in the eleventh century, during 

 the reign of King Alexander, when most of the wild 

 creatures were reserved for the royal chase, no one was 

 forbidden to hunt outwith forests and warrens for Wolves ; 

 and that from the twelfth century the monks of Melrose were 

 prohibited from hunting and from setting snares in their 



