Mr. Hardy o)i the Wolf in Scotland. !^83 



is grievously infested with fierce Avolves, which not only 

 make fierce havock of cattle, but even fall upon men."* To 

 this information we owe a simile of Pope, in the Imitations 

 of Horace ; — 



" Loud as the wolves, on Orcas' stormy steep, 

 Howl to the roarings of the northern deep ; " 



a repetition of the image by Collins, in the Ode to Liberty ; — • 



" Where Orcas howls his wolfish mountains rounding ;" 



and Campbell's 



" And waft, across the waves' tumultuous roar, 

 The wolf's long howl from Oonalaska's shore." 



Drayton makes a similar allusion in a small collection of his 

 '' Poems," published in 1608, Sonnet 25. 



But wolves existed in the extreme north of Scotland, con- 

 siderably later than the time of the great English topographer. 

 Sir Robert Gordon in his history of the Earldom of Suther- 

 land, written in the year 1630, mentions the wild animals 

 that abounded in the county in his days. The numerous 

 ^' forests and schases " were, in his estimation, " verie profit- 

 able for feiding of bestiall, and delectable for hunting. They 

 are full of reid-deer and roes, woulfFs, foxes, wyldcatts, brocks, 

 skuyrells, whittrets, weasels, otters, martrixes, hares, and 

 fumarts." According to the late Mr. James Wilson a tradi- 

 tion exists in the Edderachillis district, forming the western 

 portion of what is called Lord Reay's country, " that wolves 

 were at one time so numerous, that to avoid their ravages in 

 disinterring bodies from their graves, the inhabitants were 

 obliged to have recourse to the Island of Handa as a safer 

 place of sepulture."! Hence we have in Sutherlandshire the 

 wolf lake. Loch Maddie. In Ross-shire Inch Maree, in Loch 

 Maree, dedicated to a saint of that name, still continues a 

 burial place, chosen, it is said, like all those which are found 

 in islands to prevent depredations from the wolves of ancient 

 days. J And there^ of old, according to the nameless author 

 of Albania : — 



-" The haughty thanes of Ross 



Were wont, with clans and ready vassals throng'd 

 To wake the bounding stag or guilty wolf." 



* Gough's Camden, ii. p. 445. 



t Wilson's Voyage round Scotland, i. p. 346, 347. Wilson's (Dr. D.) Archae- 

 ology and Pre-historic Annals of Scotland, p. 192. 



^ MacuUoch quoted in Chambers' Gazeteer of Scotland, p. 755. 



T 



