of the Dee it began 4 m. above Balmoral
and followed the boundary of Perth and Forfar as far as Glen Shee,
where it went off to the south-west as far as Dunkeld. After passing
Birnam Hill it turned due west until the upper part of Glen Almond was
reached, where it bent to the southward, passing through Comrie and
along the braes of Doune to the Teith, 3 or 4 m. below Callander.
Thence it ran along the north shore of Lake Monteith to Gartmore, and
from there to Rowardennan on the east side of Loch Lomond. On the west
side it passed through Glen Douglas down Loch Long and the Firth of
Clyde, leaving Bute and Arran to the west. At the present day this
boundary has probably receded to the extent of several miles, and even
in 1870 there were districts such as Bute and the region round Dunoon
where Gaelic was only spoken by the oldest natives and the immigrant
population. The language is not found in the north-east of Caithness,
the boundary running, according to Murray, roughly from a little
north-east of Lybster to the mouth of the Forss. Celtic was driven out
of Shetland and Orkney by Scandinavian some time during the middle
ages. (See further J.A.H. Murray, _The Dialect of the Southern
Counties of Scotland_, London, 1875; _Revue celtique_, vol. ii. pp.
180-187.)

Until the 18th century Gaelic was spoken in Galloway and on the
uplands of Ayr and Lanark. The following figures from the census
returns illustrate the decrease in the number of persons who speak
Gaelic:--

Monolinguists. Bilinguists.

1881 No return 231,594
(this includes
Gaelic monolinguists)
1891 43,738 210,677
1901 28,106 202,700

In the last-mentioned year it appears that nearly one-half of the
speakers of Gaelic are reported from the counties of Inverness and
Ross (23,893 monolinguists and 82,573 bilinguists). From about 1300 we
find Scottish emigrants filtering into the glens of Antrim, where the
Gaelic that is spoken is still unmistakably Scottish. There have long
been local societies of Highlanders for the cultivation of their
native tongue, the most important one being _An Comunn Gaidhealach_
(founded 1891). This society holds an annual gathering called the
_Mod_ (=Eng. "moot") on the lines of the Welsh Eisteddfod, and
recently the Scottish