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but which had ceased to exist in England. We have, therefore, got to 

 the point, that the wolf may fairly be believed, not to have become ex- 

 tinct in England, until at least, some time in, or perhaps soon after, the 

 reign of Elizabeth. T am, however, far from contending that it then 

 existed in the southern or midland counties ; on the contrary, it appears 

 probable, that when Coke wrote, it had become extinct in all parts of 

 England, except in some few of the most northern counties, of which 

 two are contiguous to Scotland. In the southern parts it may, perhaps, 

 be presumed to have ceased to exist, about, or soon after, the period of 

 the accession of the Tudors to the throne; and it v/ill be borne in mind 

 that only seventy-three years elapsed between the accession of the first 

 of that family, Henry VII. in 1485, and that of Elizabeth, who was the 

 last of them, in 1558, and that no very extraordinary change took place 

 in the cultivation or population of England during that period. As Me 

 have the clear evidence of writers of such authenticity as Holinshed 

 and Camden, that in the time of Elizabeth all parts of Scotland 

 abounded with wolves, and as there was nothing to prevent those 

 animals from rambling across the border, either in search of prey or 

 for bringing forth their young, or in consequence of any other 

 natural instinct, it would be impossible at that time with a 

 scanty population, and with the desolation incident to the unsettled 

 state of the borders, to keep the northern counties of England 

 always free from them, and to prevent their breeding there.' 

 Those parts of England were exposed to the incursions of borderers 

 and freebooters from Scotland, whose lawless and dangerous habits 

 were almost as intolerable to their own countrymen as to the English, 

 and who principally subsisted by pillage and rendered life and property 

 insecure, and, as a natural consequence, those parts were very thinly 

 inhabited. Many very large districts in the northern counties con- 

 sisted of wild wastes, forests, hills, woody valleys and swamps, with a 

 very scanty and semi-barbarous population ; disadvantages which mili- 

 tated very much against the early extermination of savage animals. A 

 great change for the better, however, took place in the population, the 

 civilization, and the appearance of the country about the close of the 

 reign of Elizabeth. I, however, am not aware that any English writer 

 since the time of Coke has given us any reason to suppose that wolves 

 were to be found in England after the termination of her reign. We 

 can scarcely suppose that Coke was incorrect in mentioning wolves as 



1 Camden states that at the time when he wrote, wolves did not appear in England. — 

 "Matini Britannia," Goiigh's edition, vol. 3, p 16: but as there were then abundance of 

 them in Scotland, it was clear that they could not be prevented from roaming from 

 thence into England and breeding tlicre. 



