444 THE WHITE CHINA GOOSE. 



for instance, of older pedigree than all the Howards multiplied 

 a thousand-fold and I feel convinced many equally ancient 

 birds also ;) and we have, besides, records of modern extermi- 

 nations successively going on, from the Christian era to the 

 present day. No undisputed record, however, is to be found 

 of the sudden emergence into life of a new tribe of creatures. 

 Foreign introductions there have been, but nothing more, that 

 there is any affirmative evidence to prove. I am conscious 

 that I may be contradicted by such examples as the New 

 Leicester Sheep, and the very remarkable Rabbits that are now 

 kept in a state of domestication ; but Mr. Bakewell is as- 

 serted to have studiously concealed and destroyed every trace 

 of the means by which he established his breed, and the secrets 

 of the Rabbit Fancy are as likely to be made available to the 

 elucidation of natural history as are the Eleusinian Mysteries. 

 But so long as our commercial relations continue as widely ex- 

 tended as they are at present, the sudden and unexplained 

 appearance of any living novelty in England, is by no means 

 of necessity its first appearance on any stage. It may be as 



thus discovered by Mr. Green in the same fossilized condition, and 

 tinder circumstances indicative of equal antiquity with the extinct 

 Mammoth, in the lacustrine formation at Bacton. 



" A fossil skull of a Badger, in the Museum of the Philosophical 

 Institution at York, would seem to carry the antiquity of the Meles 

 taxus to a higher point than the Cave epoch, and as far back as any 

 species of the Ursine genus has been traced. Should this specimen 

 prove authentic, the Meles taxus is the oldest known species of Mam- 

 mal now living on the face of the earth. 



" My friend, Mr. Bell, has pleaded the cause of the poor persecuted 

 Badger, on the ground of its harmless nature and innocuous habits ; 

 the genuine sportsman will, doubtless, receive favourably the addi- 

 tional claim to his forbearance and protection, which the Badger de- 

 rives from his ancient descent." OWEN'S British Fossil Mammals, 

 passim. ^ 



