44? EXTERMINATED ANIMALS. 



parts of the country may have been fully as much 

 promoted by the destruction of the woods which af- 

 forded them shelter and prey, as by all the exertions 

 of man. 



There is evidence that at one period of its history, 

 the island was inhabited by a bear of much more for- 

 midable size than the brown bear which is still found 

 on the continent. That is the Cave Bear, (ursus spe- 

 Iceus,) so called, because as a living animal it is now 

 supposed to be every where extinct, though its remains 

 have been discovered in several of those great caves, 

 in which the bones of animals not now met with alive, 

 are often found. Those remains occur in several places 

 of England, and give evidence that the animal of which 

 they are now the only monument, must have been at 

 least the size of an ordinary horse. 



The wolf, though now extinct, comes down much 

 nearer to the present time ; and seems to have been 

 peculiarly abundant in the times of the Saxons. The 

 cold time of the year, when the food of the wolf in 

 his native forest fails, is still the season at which he 

 most boldly attacks domestic animals, and sometimes 

 man himself. The Saxons called January, Wolfen 

 moneth ; but whether they invented the name after they 

 came to England, or imported it from Germany, does 

 not appear ; thougb from the number of names in 

 Germany that are compounded of rvolf, the probability 

 is that they brought the name from that country. In 

 the tenth century, the number of wolves in England is 

 supposed to have been very much thinned, in conse- 

 quence of a law of Edgar, which commuted certain 

 punishments for a fine of so many wolf's tongues. In 



