348 THE DESTRUCTION OF THE FOREST 



horn of the moose-deer " found near North Berwick. But 

 there can be no doubt about the significance of the Elk 

 remains recorded by Prof. J. Cossar Ewart from the Roman 

 settlement of Newstead near Melrose. 



This is the last record of the Elk in the Lowlands. It 

 appears thereafter to have been driven to the wilder districts 

 of the north, a fact of some interest when we recall that the 

 earliest destruction of Scottish forests in historical times 

 was that carried out by the Roman legionaries. The latest 

 definite record of the Elk in Scotland is that of an antler 

 found by Sir F. T. Barry in underground buildings attached 

 to a broch at Keiss, a record which might carry its occupa- 

 tion down to about the ninth century of our era, for the 

 accessory buildings of the brochs were made at a date con- 

 siderably later than the erection of the brochs themselves. 



Yet it would be a mistake to suppose that the Elk dis- 

 appeared from Scotland in the ninth century. The references 

 in Gaelic tradition to a great extinct deer, Miol or Lon 

 a creature spoken of as black or dark in colour, shambling 

 in gait yet swift so clearly point to the special character- 

 istics of the Elk of the present day that there can be little 

 doubt as to their significance. And when the brothers John 

 Sobieski and Charles Edward Stuart translate a stanza of an 

 ancient Gaelic poem, The Aged Bard's Wish, 



I see the ridge of hinds, the steep of the sloping glen 

 The wood of cuckoos at its foot, 

 The blue height of a thousand pines, 

 Of wolves, and roes, and elks, 



there can be little doubt that they translate a tale of things 

 seen, for the whole poem is full of minute and accurate 

 descriptions of nature, such as none but an onlooker could 

 have chronicled. The reference is not an isolated one : in 

 the old poem Bas Dhiarmid the death of Dermid a 

 poem till lately well known in the Highlands, the following 

 lines occur : 



Glen Shee, that glen by my side, 



Where oft is heard the voice of deer and elk. 



And, as we have seen, Perthshire has actually yielded the 

 remains of more than one individual. 



I suggest that the main factor in the gradual limitation of 

 range and final extermination of the Elk in Scotlaad was the 



