142 Chapel of St. Cuthberts, Roxburghshire. 



of earth with a deep ditch on each side, on which was planted a 

 double thorn hedge, with a row of beech trees placed at inter- 

 vals. Such a waste of land on these old fences, may lead us to 

 conjecture that as well as a fence, beild or shelter would be one 

 of the main requirements. 



[This paper being a useful survey of an unknown tract of 

 country, I have preferred giving Mr Deans' own account of it, 

 although it would have been preferable that the author had 

 given the old track-way its proper name, a "Pech-work," 

 (apparently) instead of an impossible one. The latest dictum on 

 Cat-rails is " Cat-kail or Picts' work Ditch." Dr J. A. Murray, 

 a Border man himself, informs me that this is an invented name 

 for an invented rampart, both due to imagination of Chalmers, 

 {Caledonia, 1807; Johnston's Place- Names of Scotland, Edinr. 

 1892, p. 60) Cat-rail has not yet been ascertained to be a word 

 of common use among the shepherds, who are the arbiters here. 

 A genuine word closely resembling it, " the Railzie," is the 

 name of an ancient fosse or artificial bank of earth, on the land 

 of Liddel-bank, Dumfriesshire, as recorded in Morton's Monastic 

 Annals of Teviotdale, p. 57, note. 



The word Cat-rail first occurs in Gordon's " Itinerarium 

 Septentrionale," p. 103, London, 1726. He says: "It passes 

 the village of Bredly in Teviotdale, and crosses the Borthwick 

 water; here it is known by the name of the Cat-rail, but to the 

 northward of this place it is called the Picts- work- Bitch,.'''' Trail 

 in English is the track or spoor of a wild animal followed in 

 the chase ; but I have never heard of " trail " in Mr Deans' 

 sense used for a road. His "lang trail," and " trailled out," 

 are the effects of physical fatigue, causing the feet to drag 

 along the ground. Mr W. E. Chatto (Stephen Oliver the 

 younger) in his "Rambles on the Scottish Border," p. 172, 

 says: "Towards the head of Jed water there are paths called 

 the Cat roads; but, though they may have formed the 

 communication between the hill-forts in the neighbourhood, 

 I can find no trace of their having extended to the Cat-rail. 

 There can, however, be little doubt that the term Cat, as 

 applied to those roads, is derived from an ancient British 

 root."— J.H.] 



