152 THE WILD HORSE. 



subsequently could not prevent their again multi- 

 plying to uncountable numbers ; while in Europe, 

 the most peopled part of the old world, there were 

 still in existence wild individuals of a race never 

 reclaimed. * 



As long as the sources of information were scanty, 

 and public curiosity had defined the objects of na- 

 tural history with less attention, writers were more 

 liable than at present to be misled by erroneous 

 and indistinct accounts, or by the absence of all 

 information, and were induced to report the extinc- 

 tion of species of mammalia in several places, long 

 before they were warranted by the fact. The wolf 

 existed in Britain for ages after historians had as- 

 serted his destruction : Buffon, before the year 1760, 

 declared the stag extinct in England, while it is 

 still found in Somerset and the north of Devon ; 

 although since his time agricultural extension and 

 population have increased enormously. It was long- 

 believed in France that no beavers could be found 

 in the kingdom, whereas they have recently been 

 taken in the Rhone : the ibex was admitted to be 

 extirpated in every part of Europe, excepting in the 

 Alps, where his presence was doubted; we have 

 ourselves seen several specimens in the country, and 

 pointed out, in the Berlin Museum, the spoils of a 

 female, shot in the Spanish Pyrenees by Count 

 Hoffmansegg, without being recognised by him, 



* Ukraine wild horses, fit to be eaten, but not fit for tho 

 saddle, says Beauplan. Equiferi are the Kondziki of the Poles, 

 according to Rzonozynski. 



