CHAP, xrv.] EXTINCTION OF LARGER WILD ANIMALS. 493 



larger cattle represented by the breed of Chillingham 

 were introduced by the English farmers into Britain, 

 and probably by the Norwegians and Danes into Ireland. 



The Vikings were in the habit of taking cattle on 

 shipboard, and the Norwegian settlers in Iceland, in 

 874, 1 brought their cattle along with them. Thorsin, a 

 wealthy Icelander, founded a colony in Yin land, taking 

 with him sixty sailors, much cattle, and implements of 

 husbandry. 



From the English Conquest down to the present 

 day the additions to our domestic animals have been 

 few and unimportant. The ass 2 was known before A.D. 

 850, and the domestic cat was highly valued in Wales 

 before the tenth or eleventh centuries. 



The Extinction of the larger Wild Animals. 



The wars which followed the invasion of Britain by 

 the English delayed, in an important degree, the de- 

 struction of the larger and fiercer wild animals that 

 found shelter in the uncultivated lands. The wolves 

 increased in numbers after that time, and became suffi- 

 ciently formidable to be worthy of special enactments in 

 the days of Eadgar 3 and Edward the First. Those of 

 Sussex devoured the bodies of the English slain on the 

 battlefield of Senlac. They were exterminated in Eng- 

 land about the end of the fourteenth century, in Scot- 

 land in 1680, and in Ireland in 1710. The bear has 

 left no traces of his existence of a later date than the 

 Roman occupation. The beaver was trapped for its fur 



1 Malet, Northern Antiquities, p. 291. 1770. 



2 Bell, British Quadrupeds, p. 386. 



3 For the authorities for these dates, see Preliminary Treatise, British 

 Pkistocene Mammalia, Pabeont. Soc., 1870, c. ii. 



