YORKSHIRE: ITS PHYSICAL ASPECT. xvii 
there, but of them no record remains. The marten possibly still 
survives, as within quite recent years examples have been killed 
at Buckden and Azerley; and probably the last remnant of the 
ancient fauna is to be found in the small herd of red deer which 
are still preserved in the Deer Park at Bolton—doubtless the 
lineal descendants of those which roamed in vast herds over the 
whole district in days gone by. 
The Craven Pasture-lands.—Immediately below the 
North Western Fells, which are abruptly terminated to the south 
by the steep and occasionally precipitous descents of the Craven 
and Pennine faults, succeeds a comparatively low region, under 
600 feet in elevation, with an undulating grassy surface and low 
rounded hills, in places rising into fells which reproduce on a 
smaller scale the leading physical characteristics of those of the 
north-west. Through the green pastures of this uninteresting 
country, of which the peewit is the characteristic bird, the Ribble 
and the Hodder cut their way in the form of narrow, well- 
wooded, sheltered, and productive ravines, which give some 
charm to this otherwise monotonous country. 
Formerly constituting the famous forest of Bowland, this dis- 
trict is chiefly of interest as the last part of the county in which 
the wild white oxen survived. A herd was for a long time per- 
petuated at Gisburn Park, but the last was killed in 1859, on 
account of the degeneration of the race, resulting from many 
centuries of interbreeding and isolation. In this district also are 
the only localities for the natterjack toad, which here occurs 
sparingly, and for the whiskered bat, of which a single specimen 
was taken—the only one known for Yorkshire. 
The South-Western Moorlands. — The summit ridge, 
broken and irregular among the fells of the north-west, and inter- 
rupted by comparatively low ground south of them, begins again 
near Keighley and Ilkley, and is carried southward by a broad and 
continuous band of elevated and monotonous rolling heatherland, 
which extends along the county boundary as far as Derbyshire, and 
attains its greatest elevation—1859 feet—at Holme Moss. These 
unbroken stretches of dreary moorlands — unrelieved save by 
b 
