DANGEROUS ANIMALS OF EUROPE 



THE author of Happy Thoughts , on comparing 

 the information received in a country visit as to the 

 habits of domestic animals, concluded that they were 

 nearly all dangerous, and those that were not were 

 c very uncertain/ The same charge cannot be brought 

 against most of the wild animals of Europe, and 

 against none of those of our own island, except the 

 wild cat, and the rats, which recently bore out Mr 

 Burnand's theory by trying to eat three children at 

 Paisley.* But the causes of the survival of some, 

 and the disappearance of others, of the larger carnivora 

 of Europe, are not clearly known. The best authority 

 for the ancient haunts of the European lions is the 

 gossiping traveller Pausanias. This natural history 

 note is embedded in a long catalogue of the trophies 

 and records of athletic victories at the Olympian 

 games, which he saw in the great temple on 

 the plains of Elis. There stood a monument to 



* See the chapter headed Recent Rat Lore in the present volume. 

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