352 THE OX. 



and long accordingly before the historical era, and before the 

 Island of Britain had assumed its present form. This stream 

 of fresh water appears to have formed at its mouth a delta 

 like that of the Ganges, the Nile, and other great rivers, 

 washing along with it numerous animals, whose remains 

 exist, and testify to the living generation the prodigious 

 revolutions which this globe has undergone in its physical 

 constitution and animated inhabitants. Amongst the amaz- 

 ing monuments of a former age, which this remarkable delta 

 presents, is a reptile which fed on herbage, and which, from 

 the measurement made of its bones, appears to have been 

 upwards of seventy feet in length ; and there are found, too, 

 the remains of numerous other species, not one of which now 

 inhabits the earth. The Wealden forms part of Sussex, and 

 extends into Kent, and is distinguished by its surface being 

 a tenacious clay, entirely distinct from the chalky soils which 

 surround it. In later ages this tract became covered with 

 dense forests, and is yet remarkable, beyond any part of 

 England, for the number of noble trees which it produces. 

 " The hithermore and northern side thereof, 5 ' says Camden, 

 in describing this part of Sussex, " is shaded most pleasantly 

 with woods, like as in times past, the whole country through- 

 out, which, by reason of the woods, was hardly passable. 

 For the wood Andraswald, in the British language Coid 

 Andred, taking the name of Anderida, the city next ad- 

 joining, tooke up in this quarter, a hundred and twentie 

 miles in length, and thirtie in bredth ; memorable for the 

 death of Segibert, King of the West Saxons, who being de- 

 posed from his roiall throne, was in this place stabbed by a 

 swineherd, and so died." Long after the Romans landed 

 in Britain, the Wealden continued to be a vast thicket of 

 wood, in which the persecuted natives sought refuge, and 

 it abounded with the Uri, and other wild animals of the 

 Island, even until the times of the Norman princes. This, 

 then, is a part of the country in which we might look for the 

 preservation of ancient races of the domestic animals ; and, 



