1 8 2 EXTINCT BRITISH ANIMALS. 



The place where the last Wolf that infested Mon- 

 teith was killed is a romantic cottage south-west of the 

 mill of Milling, in the parish and barony of Port.* 



" The devastations of Oliver CromweU in the vast 

 oak and fir woods of Lochaber are well known, and 

 in 1 848 the old people still retained traditions of the 

 native clearances in the same century, when the 

 great tracts south of Loch Treig and upon the Black- 

 water were set on fire to exterminate the Wolves! "t 



In the EdderachiUis district, forming the western 

 portion of what is called Lord Reay's country, a 

 tradition existed to the efiect 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. % 



The Earl of EUesmere, referring to an extract from 

 the journal of his son, the Hon. Capt. Francis 

 Egerton, RN., written in India, and relating to an 

 apparently well authenticated story of some children 

 in Oude who were carried away and brought up by 

 Wolves, § says : " It is odd that the same tale should 

 extend to the Highlands. I got a story identical in 

 all its particulars of the Wolf time of Sutherland from 

 the old forester of the Eeay, in which district Gaelic 

 tradition avers that Wolves so abounded that it was 

 usual to bury the dead in the Island of Handa to 

 avoid desecration of the graves." 



* Nimmo's " Stirlingshire," pp. 74S, 750. 



f Staart, " Lays of the Deer Forest," ii. p. 221. 



% Wilson's " Voyage round Scotland," vol. i. p. 346. 



§ " Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist," second series, viii. p. 153. 



