Animal Feats

Lunchtime reading a few years back was old issues of the Kelso Mail. The National Library of Scotland holds copies for 1802-1841, and as it was the only newspaper published in the Borders in those days I hoped it would contain information on Liddesdale. I was not disappointed. There were adverts for the Larriston Limeworks, sale and let of farms, the Liddesdale Turnpike Trust and Statute Labour Trust. Sometimes accidents were mentioned, and occasionally there would be a public celebration e.g. the young Duke of Buccleuch’s 14th birthday in 1820[1] when a bonfire was lit in Douglas Square). Plans were published for a new main road from Scotch Corner to Hawick via Newcastleton. And much more.

Four light-hearted articles caught my attention – all to do with animals.

The first concerned a Cheviot ewe belonging to John Elliot of Whithaugh. This animal ‘bred on the high and marshy lands of Tweedenside’ gave birth tp twelve lambs in three years.[2] They were ‘all alive and strong’. Was this a record?

A close second in this contest was another ewe seen by an anonymous ‘Jedburgh gentleman’. This ewe had 16 lambs in five years, all the lambs were alive, and what is more ‘she nursed but one lamb at a time, having only one teat’![3]

A curious incident, said to show the ‘sagacity of the dog’, took place a few months after this. Mr Kyle of Braidlie sold a white spotted fox-hound to a young gentleman who was about to emigrate to Australia. The dog and its new owner had boarded the Minerva at Leith Docks when the dog ‘leaped out of the hands of its keeper’. It was 3pm on Wednesday , February 27, 1822. By 5 o’clock next morning the dog had arrived at Braidlie, 70 miles away.[4] The Minerva finally sailed from Leith on March 10[5], but a gale blew her to Kirkcaldy where she had to be ‘neaped’ for a fortnight while her hold was bailed out[6]. By jumping ship the hound missed the stormy crossing of the Forth, but whether the delay allowed time for the emigrant to retrieve his animal we may never know.

And what about ‘Feline sympathy’ from the correspondent of the Dumfries Herald?

A goose having hatched a brood of young died before her progeny were come to maturity. No sooner was the parent gone, than a cat, assuming the maternal office, took the destitute goslings under her charge. Wherever they went, she accompanied them , watching their movements with every mark of care and concern. If at any time they made for the pond, she then evinced the utmost alarm, and did all in her power to dissuade then from entering an element which she apprehended must prove fatal to them; and then on one occasion while forcibly dragging one of then from the water, the poor gosling lost its head in eth struggle. The were usually kept in a box, beside their supposed parent. In the meantime puss gave birth to an offspring of her own, and it was then suspected that the goslings would, a second time, be left motherless; but not so, puss was determined to abide by her first love; for, consigning the care of her own offspring to her daughter, she continued to exercise the functions of the office which she had voluntarily assumed, till they had reached that period when they deemed themselves entitled to shake off the restraints of parental authority.[7]

This took place at The Flatt, a farm about 3 miles south of Newcastleton.


[1] Kelso Mail, December 4, 1820, p 4
[2] Kelso Mail, Aug 16, 1819, p4
[3] Kelso Mail, Jun 4, 1821, p4
[4] Kelso Mail, Mar 4, 1822, p4
[5] Edinburgh Advertiser, Mar 12, 1822, p168
[6] Edinburgh Advertiser, Mar 12, 1822, p161
[7] Kelso Mail December 9, 1839, p 4