REVIVAL OF PRIMITIVE FAUNA 37 



considerable numbers, and they are looked on by 

 woodmen with feelings not altogether friendly. 

 They are mischievous, no doubt, eating the shoots 

 and leaders of young pines ; but who would judge 

 harshly a creature with such bright eyes and such 

 engaging manners ? 



Badgers, formerly plentiful, as attested by many 

 ancient names of places containing the syllable 

 * brock,' 1 had quite disappeared, but an importation 

 of five from Berkshire about twelve years ago has pro- 

 duced a numerous progeny. There would be risk of 

 arousing angry feelings by any proposal to restore 

 our polecats, which I remember seeing trapped in 

 my boyhood. There is probably not one in the whole 

 district now, though they, too, have their names em- 

 balmed in the Celtic topography of the south-west : 

 witness such a name as Corriefecklach that is, coire 

 feacolach, the corrie of the polecat or stinking one. 



Jays noisy, gaudy, voracious jays hateful to 

 English gamekeepers, have been surreptitiously 

 turned loose, and the Scottish garde-chasse has not 

 woke up yet to their profligate nature, which, after 



1 The name for the badger broc is the same in Gaelic as in 

 Anglo-Saxon ; hence Brockley, near London, means the same as 

 Brocklach and Carsenabrock in Galloway. 



