PHYSICAL FEATURES OF THE COUNTY. II 



and Buzzard be seen daily sailing overhead in graceful 

 gyrations. The Wild Cat might frequently be met with in 

 the depths of the forest, while on the open land on its 

 outskirts the noble Stag might be seen proudly raising his 

 antlered head, and snuffing the breeze to detect the where- 

 abouts of his enemy. The birds mentioned above are still with 

 us, though in greatly diminished numbers : the mammals re- 

 ferred to have all vanished, and we may say, speaking broadly, 

 that they disappeared with the forest which sheltered them. 

 Perhaps it is hardly a matter for regret that the Wolf, Wild 

 Cat, and Wild Boar are extinct here, but to the naturalist 

 these animals, and the traces they have left behind them, 

 are full of interest as connecting our limited fauna, not only 

 with the distant past, but with the fauna of the Continent, 

 and, through it, with that of the whole world. Turning now to 

 SHROPSHIRE OF TO-DAY the first thing that strikes 

 an observer is the variety of its surface. The whole area 

 is only about 1,340 square miles, yet within this compass we 

 have plateaus and plains, hills and vales, boggy flats and 

 heathery moors, cornlands and pastures, wooded slopes and 

 barren crags, meres and ponds, streams big and little, and 

 most important of all the river Severn. The result of 

 this combination of physical features (although some of them 

 are necessarily on a small scale), is that the fauna likewise 

 presents a varied aspect that the fauna of Shropshire is as 

 rich in species as that of any inland county in England. It 

 is surprising what a number of sea and shore-birds come as 

 visitors, not by any means always driven by storms, but in 

 many cases attracted by such sheets of water as the meres at 

 Ellesmere, etc., and by certain still reaches of the Severn, 

 near Cressage and Melverley. Others again Birds and 

 Fishes come to us by following the course of the Severn 



