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Athole, Badenach, Mar, Moray, and the surrounding country. 
After mentioning incidentally that the Queen ordered one of the 
fiercest dogs to be slipped at a wolf — “ Laxatus enim regince 
jussu , atque immissus in lupum , insignis admoclum ac ferox 
. canis ,” — Barclay concludes his account of the “ drive ” with the 
statement that there were killed that very day 360 deer, 5 
wolves, and some roes. 
According to Holinshed, wolves were very destructive to the 
flocks in Scotland during the reign of James VI. in 1577. At 
this time they were so numerous throughout the greater part of 
the Highlands, that in the winter it was necessary to provide 
houses, or “ spittals ” as they were termed, to afford lodgings for 
travellers who might be overtaken by night where there was no 
place of shelter. Hence the origin of the Spittal of Gflen Shae, 
and similar appellations in other places. 
Camden, whose “ Britannia ” was published in 1586, asserts 
that wolves that date were common in many parts of Scot- 
land, and particularly refers to Strathnavern. 
“The county,” he says, “hath little cause to brag of its 
fertility. By reason of the sharpness of the air it is very thinly 
inhabited, and thereupon extremely infested with the fiercest 
of wolves, which, to the great damage of the county, not only 
furiously set upon cattle, but even upon the owners themselves, 
to the manifest danger of their lives. In so much that not only 
in this, but in many other parts of Scotland, the sheriffs and 
respective inhabitants are bound by Act of Parliament, in their 
several sheriffdoms, to go a hunting thrice every year to destroy 
the wolves and their whelps.” * 
Bishop Lesley, writing towards the close of the sixteenth 
century, complains much of the prevalence of wolves at that 
period, and of their ferocity.! 
“ About this time there was nothing but the petty flock of 
sheep, or herd of a few milk-cows, grazed round the farm-house, 
and folded nightly for fear of the wolf, or more cunning depre- 
dators.” t 
Towards the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seven- 
teenth centuries large tracts of forests in the Highlands were 
purposely cut down or burned, as the only means of expelling 
the wolves which there abounded. 
11 These hills and glens and wooded wilds can tell 
How many wolves and boars and deer then fell.” 
CampbelVs Grampians Desolate, p. 102. 
* Camden, “ Britannia,” Vol. ii. p. 1279. The editor, Dr. Gibson, Bishop 
of Lincoln, has a marginal note to this passage “No wolves now in Scot- 
land ” (1772). Gough’s edition, 1787, Vol. ii. p. 445. 
t “ De Origine, Moribus et Rebus Scotorum.” 
\ Irvine’s “ Scotch Legal Antiquities,” p. 264. 
