116 EXTINCT BRITISH ANIMALS. 
abound, while in Scotland and Ireland they must 
have been even still more numerous. 
The vast tracts of unreclaimed forest land which 
formerly existed in these realms, the magnificent 
remnants of which in many parts still strike the 
beholder with awe and admiration, afforded for 
centuries an impenetrable retreat for these animals, 
from which it was well-nigh impossible to drive 
them. It was not, indeed, until all legitimate 
modes of hunting and trapping had proved in vain, 
until large prices set upon the heads of old and 
young had alike failed to compass their entire 
destruction, that by cutting down or burning whole 
tracts of the forests which harboured them, they 
were at length effectually extirpated. 
In the course of the following remarks it is proposed 
to deal, first, with the geological evidence of the 
former existence and distribution of Wolves in the 
British Islands ; secondly, with the historical evidence 
_of their survival and gradual extinction. 
Under the latter head it will be convenient to 
arrange the evidence separately for England and 
Wales, Scotland, and Ireland: and, as regards 
England and Wales, to subdivide the subject 
chronologically into (1) the Ancient British Period ; 
(2) the Anglo-Saxon Period; and (3) the period 
intervening between the Norman Conquest and the 
reign of Henry VII. 
In this reign, it is believed, the last trace of the 
Wolf in England disappeared, since history there- 
after is silent on the subject. In Scotland and 
