The Zoologist— November, 1868. 1453 



I take this opportunity of noticing a misprint in Dr. Charlton's 

 paper, read before the Tyneside Naturalist's Club. As reprinted in 

 the ' Zoologist,' the writer is made to say seven auks were killed by a 

 peasant at Lautrura, on the north-west coast of Ireland — a very 

 obvious misprint for Iceland. 



J. H. GrjRNEY, JUN. 



The Wolf: dale of its Extinction in Britain. — In the September number of the 

 'Zoologist' (S.S. 1349), I see some remarks by Mr. Newman on the extinction of the 

 wolf in Scotland, which he supposes to have taken place at an earlier period than it 

 really did. In Scrope's ' Days of Deer-stalking ' will be found an account of the death 

 of the last wolf in Sutherland, which look place between 1690 and 1700 near Sledale 

 in Glenloth. I have no doubt, however, that a few wolves remained in Invernesshire 

 at a later period than this, as in the second volume of ' Lays of the Deer-forest,' by the 

 brothers Stuart, whose intimate knowledge of the language and traditions of the High- 

 lands makes all their writings well worthy of credence, will be found an account of the 

 slaying of a wolf between Fi-Ginthas and Pall-a-crocain, in Strath Dearn, about the 

 year 1743, by Macqueen of Pall-a-crocain, a celebrated man in that district, who did 

 not die till 1797. I shall take the liberty of extracting from this most interesting book 

 some passages which tend very much to clear up the matter in question. Speaking of 

 the wolves in the Highlands, the authors say, "This last great outbreak in the time 

 of Queen Mary led to more vigorous measures, which, in the time of Charles II., 

 reduced their race to so small a number that in some districts their extinction is 

 believed to have followed soon after that period. Thus in Lochaber the last of that 

 country is said to have been killed by Sir Ewen Cameron in 1680, which Pennant 

 misuuderstood to have been the last of the species in Scotland." Every district, how- 

 ever, has its "last wolf," and there were probably several w.hich were later than that 

 killed by Sir Ewen Cameron. The last of Strathglass was killed, according to tradition, 

 "at no very distant period." The last in Glen Urquhart, on the east side of the valley 

 between Loch-Leitir and Sheagly, at a place called " Slochd-a-mhadaidh" (the wolf's 

 den). The last of the Findhoru, and also, as there seems every reason to believe, the 

 last of his species in Scotland, at a place between Fi-Ginthas and Pall-a-chrucaiu, 

 and, according to popular chronology, no longer ago than 1743. There is, however, 

 a passage in Mr. Newman's paper, accounting for the extirpation of the wolf, which 

 I cannot agree with at all: he says, " To the Kelt (meaning, I presume, tbe High- 

 landers and native Irish) the wolf had been a terror, and held in abject dread; to the 

 Saxon he was simply a nuisance, and so was destroyed. Nevertheless, owing to the 

 numerical preponderance of the Kelt, the task of destruction was very gradual, and the 

 wolf held his own much longer than in Scotland, where the native, with a shrewd eye 

 to self-interest, amalgamated with the Saxon, and availed himself of that powerful 

 arm." I do not believe that the brave and warlike Highlanders could have been, as 

 Mr. Newman imagines, in such abject dread of the wolf, which at best is but a 

 cowardly beast; more especially as, in all the instances I know of, the last wolves 

 were killed by native Highlanders, some of them by women and children. At that 

 time the Saxon had hardly penetrated to the remoter parts of the Highlands, where 



