BRITISH AND FOREIGN 127 



least) would ever have taken the trouble to bring tliem 

 over. Still more does the presence in our islands of the 

 red deer, and formerly of the wild white cattle, the wolf, 

 the bear, and the wild boar, to say nothing of the beaver, 

 the otter, the squirrel, and the weasel, prove that England 

 was once conterminous with France or Belgium. At the 

 very best of times, however, before Sir Ewen Cameron of 

 Lochiel had killed positively the last ' last wolf ' in Britain 

 (several other ' last wolves ' having previously been des- 

 patched by various earlier intrepid exterminators), our 

 English fauna was far from a rich one, especially as regards 

 the larger quadrupeds. In bats, birds, and insects we have 

 always done better, because to such creatures a belt of sea is 

 not by any means an insuperable barrier ; whereas in reptiles 

 and amphibians, on the contrary, we have always been 

 weak, seeing that most reptiles are bad swimmers, and very 

 few can rival the late lamented Captain Webb in liis feat 

 of crossing the Channel, as Leander and Lord Byron did 

 the Hellespont. 



Only one good-sized animal, so far as known, is now 

 peculiar to the British Isles, and that is our familiar 

 friend the red grouse of the Scotch moors. I doubt, how- 

 ever, whether even he is really indigenous in the strictest 

 sense of the word : that is to say, whether he was evolved 

 in and for these islands exclusively, as the moa and the ap- 

 teryx were evolved for New Zealand, and the extinct dodo for 

 Mauritius alone. It is far more probable that the red grouse 

 is the original variety of the willow grouse of Scandinavia, 

 which has retained throughout the year its old plumage, 

 while its more northern cousins among the fiords and fjelds 

 have taken, under stress of weather, to donning a complete 

 white dress in winter, and a grey or speckled tourist suit 

 for the summer season. 



Even since the insulation of Britain a great many new 



