DESTRUCTION FOR SAFETY OF MAN AND STOCK 119 



is gret plente of haris, hartis, hindis, dayis, rais, wolffis....The wolffis ar 

 richt noisum to the tame bestiall, in all partis of Scotland, except ane part 

 thairof namit Glenmores, in quhilk the tame bestiall gettis litill damma^e 

 of wild bestiall." 



And half a century later, Bishop Leslie of Rosse found no 

 diminution in the plague: 



our nychbour Inglande has nocht ane wolfe, with quhilkes afore thay war 

 mekle molested and invadet, bot we now nocht few, ye contrare, verie 

 monie and maist cruel, cheiflie in our North cuntrey, quhair nocht only 

 invade thay scheip, oxne, ye and horse, bot evin men, specialie women with 

 barne, outragiouslie and fercelie thay ouirthrows. 



In spite of the interference of .man, the wolf plague 

 had increased beyond the limit of toleration. In her Book 

 of Highland Minstrelsy, Mrs D. Ogilvie gives a vivid 

 account of the sufferings to which the natives of north-west 

 Sutherland were subjected. 



The lean and hungry wolf, 



With his fangs so sharp and white, 

 His starveling body pinched 



By the frost of a northern night, 

 And his pitiless eyes that scare the dark 



With their green and threatening light. 



He climbeth the guarding dyke, 



He leapeth the hurdle bars, 

 He steals the sheep from the pen, 



And the fish from the boat-house spars ; 

 And he digs the dead from out the sod, 



And gnaws them under the stars. 



And so at last the inhabitants of Ederachillis were com- 

 pelled to carry their dead across the sea to the lonely and 

 isolated island of Handa, there to lay the poor bodies in 

 peace, far from the reach of the prowlers of the night. 



In this sixteenth century, King James V in 1529 and 

 Queen Mary in 1563, witnessed the destruction of numerous 

 Wolves in royal hunts held in the forests of Athole, but 

 there is no mention of Wolves in the account of the royal 

 chase organised by James V in Ettrick Forest in 1528. 

 Apparently Wolves had already been extirpated from the 

 Lowlands. Yet at this very time so dangerous had travelling 

 become in the Highlands that, according to tradition, the 

 great pine woods of Rannoch and Lochaber were almost 

 impassable on account of their savage tenants, and hospices, 

 hospitals, or "spittals" as they were called, were erected on 



