EXTINCT BRITISH QUADRUPEDS. 275 
already reduced to cultivation, and reconverted it into forest; 
and his example was followed by Henry II., Richard I., and 
John, all of whom enforced such stringent and arbitrary forest 
laws as to cause the greatest possible ill-feeling and discontent 
throughout the land. Everyone knows how this culminated in 
open rebellion, and how eventually a remedy was obtained in the 
shape of the Great Charter, and the Charter of the Liberties 
and Customs of the Forest. A few years later, when Henry III. 
confirmed the Charter of the Forest, he directed that all the 
ground which had been added to the ancient forests by his 
predecessors should be disafforested and restored to rightful 
owners. 
From that time to the present the forests have become 
gradually reduced in extent, until, instead of extending for sixty 
or seventy miles at a stretch, they dwindled down to mere rem- 
nants of perhaps not more than six or seven miles diameter. 
In Henry VIII.’s time a good many ancient forests were 
destroyed, particularly in the north of England. James I. sold 
and gave away a great many of the royal forests, which were 
gradually reduced in area, and some of them entirely cleared. 
Towards the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth 
centuries large tracts of forest, pine, birch, and oak, in Scot- 
land, were purposely set on fire and burnt down, in order to 
destroy the wolves with which they were infested. 
Thus we see how the old forests gradually became split up 
into mere remnants of their former greatness, which remnants at 
the commencement of the present century were found to be sixty- 
nine in number, with thirteen chases and upwards of 750 parks.* 
It is easy to understand how this breaking up of the forest land 
into patches led to the destruction of the wild beasts in its 
recesses ; for so long as they could keep ahead of their pursuers 
through interminable tracts of forest, they were in no immediate 
danger of becoming extinct; but so soon as large tracts of 
cleared and cultivated ground intervened between their strong- 
holds, they were more easily surrounded and destroyed. When, 
in addition to these facilities for hunting, Acts of Parliament 
were passed which provided that rewards should be paid for 
their destruction, their doom in a few years was sealed. 
* In Domesday thirty-one parks only are mentioned. 
