THE LAST HISTORICAL NOTICE. 327 



yeres in the said forest and the like was not mayn- 

 teyned in any other parte of this He of Albion as is 

 well knowen." 



The last statement in this charge shows that Qneen 

 Elizabeth's ministers were better versed in politics than 

 in natnral history : for assuredly many wild herds were 

 then in existence. Yet as wild forest animals the Cum- 

 bernauld " white kye and bulles " were, as we have seen, 

 unique, and of sufficient celebrity to be noticed in so im- 

 portant a State Paper. 



After this they have no history. Thinned down, as 

 we have seen, in these convulsions, and also, it is said, 

 during the civil wars of the next century, they gradually 

 became extinct, though the exact time it is impossible 

 to fix. In the time of Charles II., William, Earl of 

 Wigton, kept a Household Book, a venerable-looking 

 tome, with iron clasps, still preserved, in which is kept 

 a regular entry of the sheep and cattle taken from the 

 forest for the use of the family. These may have been 

 remains of the old breed in a greater or less state of 

 purity ; the tradition of the oldest, and the belief of the 

 best-informed persons about the place being, that this 

 ancient race came to an end about the time of the build- 

 ing of the new mansion-house of Cumbernauld — that 

 is, about a hundred and forty years since. 



Cumbernauld also possessed in comparatively modern 

 times a singular natural curiosity : a breed of bald-faced 

 stags. Captain Spiers, of Culcreuch, informs me that, 

 being very intimate with the family in the time of the 

 Hon. Admiral Fleming, grandfather of the late owner, 

 he observed in the house at Cumbernauld an old hunt- 

 ing picture, showing] the stag at bay, and having a 

 very decidedly bald face. Captain Spiers made some 



