BRITISH AND FOREIGN 133 



their frequent fasting produced this effect ; whether, as 

 they themselves piously alleged, it was due to constant 

 kneeling on the cold stones of churches ; or whether, as 

 their enemies rather insinuated, it was due in greater 

 measure to the excellent wines presented to them by their 

 Italian confreres, is a minute question to be decided by Mr. 

 Freeman, not by the present humble inquirer. But the 

 fact remains that bishops and gout got indelibly associated 

 in the public mind ; that the episcopal toes were looked 

 upon as especially subject to that insidious disease up to 

 the very end of the last century ; and that they do say the 

 bishops even now but I refrain from the commission of 

 scandalum magnatum. Anyhow, this particular weed was 

 held to be a specific for the bishop's evil ; and, being intro- 

 duced and cultivated for the purpose, it came to be known 

 indifferently to herbalists as bishop- weed and gout-weed. 

 It has now long since ceased to be a recognised member of 

 the British Pharmacopeia, but, having overrun our lanes 

 and thickets in its flush period, it remains to this day a 

 visible botanical and etymological memento of the past 

 twinges of episcopal remorse. 



Taken as a whole, one may fairly say that the total 

 population of the British Isles consists mainly of three 

 great elements. The first and oldest the only one with 

 any real claim to be considered as truly native is the cold 

 Northern, Alpine and Arctic element, comprising such 

 animals as the white hare of Scotland, the ptarmigan, the 

 pine marten, and the capercailzie the last once extinct, 

 and now reintroduced into the Highlands as a game bird. 

 This very ancient fauna and flora, left behind soon after 

 the Glacial Epoch, and perhaps in part a relic of the type 

 which still struggled on in favoured spots during that 

 terrible period of universal ice and snow, now survives for 

 the most part only in the extreme north and on the highest 



