20 EXTINCT BRITISH ANIMALS. 
the Romans and their imitators, the Roman Britons. 
And as amphitheatres were constructed of squared 
stone, and ina magnificent style for these exhibitions 
at Rome, so were others erected here in Britain in a 
less pretentious style of architecture, and of the 
humbler materials of clay, chalk, gravel, and turf. 
Such are the great amphitheatres at Silchester and 
Dorchester, once extending in several rows of seats, 
ANGLO-SAXON GLEEMEN’S BEAR DANCE. TENTH CENTURY. 
and still including an arena of nearly two hundred 
yards in circumference. 
In all probability the trained bears exhibited by 
the Anglo-Saxon Gleemen were native animals taken 
young and tamed. 
So far as history informs us, it would seem that 
Scotland, and more particularly the great Cale- 
donian forest, was the chief stronghold of our British 
Bears. Bishop Leslie says that that great wood was 
* “Ttin. Cur.,” pp. 155-170; “ Phil. Trans.” 1748, p. 603. 
