EXTINCT BRITISH QUADRUPEDS. 289 
consequence of the utter impossibility of dislodging them from 
the almost impenetrable forests and mountain fastnesses to 
which they were driven. But the gradual removal of these 
obstacles, and the insular nature of the country from which they 
could not escape, finally, and of necessity, brought about their 
extinction. 
The facts thus briefly narrated teach us also something more 
than this. They show us what a length of time it has taken to 
eradicate a single species, even in so comparatively limited an 
area as that of the British Islands, and under circumstances 
which seemed so favourable to the object in view. 
They remind us that now, in our own day, there are species 
passing away which will sooner or later have to be classed with 
those I have enumerated. The Roe-deer is already extinct in Eng- 
land, although still common in some parts of Scotland. The Wild 
Cat has not only been exterminated in England, but is no longer 
to be found in the south of Scotland, that is to say, not south of a 
line extending from Oban on the west coast, along the southern 
and eastern borders of Perthshire, and thence in a north-westerly 
direction to Inverness. 
The Marten, although still to be found in parts of Cumberland 
and Westmoreland, and in certain districts in Scotland and 
Ireland, has become so rare as a British animal as to make its 
occurrence when noted a matter of comment. The Polecat will 
soon be as rare. All these animals are gradually passing away, 
and it behoves naturalists, while they have yet the opportunity 
of so doing, to investigate, each in his own neighbourhood, the 
life-history and distribution of these particular species, so as to 
place on record the most interesting facts concerning them, facts 
which hereafter it may be impossible to obtain. It is scarcely to 
be expected that any of us will live to hear of the complete ex- 
tinction of any of the species just named; but when we consider 
how comparatively little our forefathers did to elucidate the 
Natural History of the country in which they lived, and how 
fragmentary still is our knowledge of the wild animals by which 
they were surrounded, it is to be hoped that we may be able to 
do more for posterity in this respect than our ancestors have 
done for us. 
In Zoology as in History the value of contemporary records 
is inestimable. 
2P 
