CHAPTER lY. 



THE PLAINS OF EUROPE, 



UR survey of the Temperate World now brings 

 us to the Plains of Europe. Here it will be 

 unnecessary for us to linger in countries where 

 the skill of the agriculturist has turned to 

 advantage almost every inch of soil. It is not our pur- 

 pose in these pages to describe the forms of animal life 

 with which everybody is familiar — such as the horse, the 

 sheep, the goat, the bull — but to confine ourselves to those 

 which present some remarkable or characteristic details, 

 or are gradually disappearing before the continuous en- 

 croachment of civilization. Nowhere has this encroach- 

 ment effected greater changes than in Central Europe, 

 where scarcely any remains are left of the vast forest that 

 once extended over its level area. With the leafy wilder- 

 ness has disappeared many of its inhabitants. The wolf, 

 the bear, and the wild boar have been almost exterminated, 

 or driven into a few solitary places among the Pyrenean 

 or Scandinavian mountains, where their numbers are 

 annually decreasing ; and in the patches of woodland that 

 bloom in the midst of the richly cultivated country the 



