VALUE OF BISHOP LESLIE'S ACCOUNT. 137 



in his own time infested it. It describes much more 

 fully than Boethius did the lion-like mane of the 

 Caledonian forest bull ; it relates how this bull was 

 very sensitive to what man had not only touched, but 

 even breathed upon ; how it attacked horsemen, and 

 how it used as a weapon of offence the hoof as well as 

 the horn ; and it enlarges upon the animal's contempt 

 of dogs, however ferocious, while it says nothing about 

 its indifference to spears and other weapons. But the 

 most striking and complete difference between the two 

 accounts is, that while Boethius mentioned one place 

 only — Cumbernauld — where this wild bull still remained, 

 the bishop named two others : Stirling and Kincardine. 

 Upon this point he appears to have had the more full 

 information. It is quite probable that in Leslie's time 

 some of the wild bulls which had afforded sport to the 

 Scottish kings when they made Stirling their residence 

 were still preserved there ; for more than a hundred 

 years later Sibbald mentions Torwood, near Stirling, as 

 one of the largest woods then remaining in Scotland. 

 Where Kincardine was is not certain. There are several 

 Kincardines ; but the one most likely meant is a small 

 place of that name near Blair Drummond, and between 

 Stirling and Callander, being exactly the same localities 

 where the mountain bull existed in the time of Robert 

 Bruce, and where it was probably still preserved by the 

 Scottish kings in the time of Bishop Leslie. It is 

 singular that neither Boethius nor Leslie alludes to the 

 wild cattle at Hamilton ; which, however, were beyond 

 the range of the Caledonian Forest, and being also 

 confined in a park, were perhaps in both respects outside 

 their subject ; and this remark probably applies to other 

 wild herds, then existing, but similarly circumstanced. 



