254 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
out of their principal hold in that range. According to the 
Wardlaw MS., “ she was a stout bold woman, a great huntress ; 
she would have travelled in our hills a-foot, and perhaps out- 
wearied good footmen. She purged Mount Caplach of the 
wolves.” Mount Caplach is the highest range of the Aird 
running parallel to the Beauly Frith, behind Moniach and 
Lentron. Though the place of the lady’s seat is now forgotten, 
its existence is still remembered, and said to have been at a pass 
where she sat when the woods were driven for the wolves, not 
only to see them killed, but to shoot at them with her own 
arrows. The period of her repression of the wolves is indicated 
by the succession of her husband to the lordship of Lovat, 
which was in 1450, and it is therefore probable that the 
“ purging ” of Mount Caplach was begun soon after that date.* * * § 
Such partial expulsions, however, had little effect upon the 
general “ herd ” of wolves, which, fostered by the great High- 
land forests, increased at intervals to an alarming extent. During 
the reign of James IV. (1488-1513), rewards continued to be 
paid for the slaughter of wolves in Scotland, and we learn the 
value of a wolfs head in those days from the accounts of the 
Lord High Treasurer, f For instance, under date “ October 
24th, 1491,” we find this entry : — 
66 Item, til a fallow brocht 
ye king ij wolfis in Lythgow . . . Vs.” 
In the time of James V. their numbers and ravages were 
formidable. At that period great part of Boss, Inverness, 
almost the whole of Cromarty, and large tracts of Perth and 
Argyleshire, were covered with forests of pine, birch, and oak, 
the remains of which continued to our time in Braemar, Inver- 
cauld, Kothiemurchus, Arisaig, the banks of Loch Ness, Glen 
Strath-Farar, and Glen Garrie ; and it is known from history and 
tradition that the braes of Moray, Nairn and Glen Urcha, the 
glens of Lochaber, and Loch Erroch, the moors of Kannach, 
and the hills of Ardgour were covered in the same manner.^ All 
these clouds of forests were more or less frequented by wolves. 
Boethius mentions their numbers and devastation in his time,§ 
and in various districts where they last remained, the traditions 
of their haunts are still familiarly remembered. Loch Sloigh 
* MS. History of the Frasers, in the library of Lord Lovat (p. 44). Also 
the curious account of the North Highlands called the Wardlaw MS. in the 
possession of Mr. Thompson, Inverness (p. 67). 
t Extracts from these accounts will be found in Pitcairn’s “ Criminal 
Trials in Scotland,” Vol. i. p. 116. 
f MacFarlane’s Geographical Collections. MS. Bibl. Facult. Jurid. ii. 
192. Quoted in Smart’s “ Lays of the Deer Forest.” 
§ Scot. Hist. fol. 7. 
