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THE WOLF IN SCOTLAND AND ELSEWHERE. 



By J. R. McClymont. 



A few lines in the panegyrical poem " Forth Feasting," by 

 Drummond of Hawthornden, which was published in 1617 on 

 the occasion of the visit of King James I. to Edinburgh, reveal 

 certain interesting points of difference between field sports in 

 the seventeenth century and at the present day. The lines 

 run thus :— 



" When years thee vigour gave, then how clear 

 Did smother'd sparkles in bright flames appear ! 

 Amongst the woods to force a flying hart, 

 To pierce the mountain wolf with feather'd dart, 

 See falcons climb the clouds, the fox ensnare, 

 Outrun the wind-outrunning daedal hare, 

 To loose a trampling steed alongst a plain 

 And in meand'ring gyres him bring again, 

 The press thee making place, were vulgar things." 



The mental picture suggested by the flying hart forced into 

 a wood by the tactics of its pursuers reminds us that the 

 Normans hunted deer on horseback and on foot, employed dogs 

 in the chase of them, and shot them with arrows ; and it is to 

 this mode of hunting Red Deer that Drummond alludes. It 

 would be to the advantage of those who engaged in the hunt to 

 drive the hart into a wood where its speed would be checked, 

 and where it could be shot by hunters in ambush. The climbing 

 of clouds by Falcons is an allusion to falconry, which survives 

 from olden times without important change, and the outrunning 

 of the Hare, daedal or fertile in resources, must have been akin 

 to coursing. 



Drummond names two other forms of outdoor diversion 

 which are without counterpart in our days — at least within the 

 British Isles — namely, setting snares for Foxes and piercing 

 Wolves with feathered darts — " feather'd dart " being doubtless 

 a periphrasis signifying "arrow." The employment of the 

 epithet " mountain " might induce us to believe that a Wolf 



