ANCIENT AND MODERN FORESTRY 71 
proved by the positive evidence of record. Oak 
appears, in those times, to have been the wood of 
most general use. The bridges, the castles, the 
churches, and the towns were chiefly built with 
this useful timber. The waste of domestic use, 
as well as the wars of Edward I., left many woods 
of great magnitude, and usefulness, in every shire 
of Scotland, at the accession of Robert Bruce. 
Still more wasteful wars commenced with that 
event, which may be said to have lasted, with 
little intermission, during half a century. Add 
to the devastation of these wars the destruction of 
time and chance, of neglect and idleness, whence 
we may clearly perceive adequate causes of the 
deplorable waste of the Scottish woods. There 
are in the maps of Scotland a thousand names of 
places, which are derived from the woods, which 
no longer exist on the face of the country. 
And there are in the Chartularies numerous 
notices of forests, in many places where not a 
tree is now to be seen.’ 
What remains, for example, of Ettrick Forest 
in Selkirkshire, consisting largely of pine mixed 
with oak, birch, and hazel, where ‘beasts of 
chase, and birds of prey, formerly abounded’? 
