CONCLUSION. 
In considering the causes, besides those already 
referred to, which have led to the extinction of 
the wild animals now under consideration, it should 
be borne in mind that for some centuries after 
the Norman Conquest they were not hunted down 
and destroyed by everybody and anybody, as 
they would be if they existed at the present 
day, but were strictly preserved under very severe 
penalties by the kings and powerful noblemen of 
the day for their own particular sport and recreation. 
William the Conqueror punished with the loss of 
eyes those convicted of killing a wild boar, stag, or 
roebuck ; and wolves and foxes, although reckoned 
neither as beasts of the forest nor of venery, could 
not be killed within the limits of the forest without 
a breach of the royal chase, for which offenders had 
to yield a recompense. 
‘The inveterate love of the chase possessed by 
William Rufus, which prompted him to enforce during 
his tragical reign the most stringent and cruel forest 
laws, is too well-known to readers of history to require 
comment. 
