FAUNA. 27 



Fauna. 



The Britisli fauna has undergone many vicissitudes in the course of ages. TTot 

 only have large mammals, which we know to have been the contemporaries of pre- 

 historic man, perished, but even during historical times, as civilisation progressed, 

 and land was more and more brought under cultivation, several wild animals 

 have been exterminated. Of the existence of such southern types as the cave lion, 

 the hippopotamus, the mammoth, and hyena, or of the northern reindeer and the 

 great Irish deer, we only possess records furnished by deposits in caverns and river 

 gravels. The wild ox, a fierce and powerful animal of Vv'hite colour, which 

 abounded in the time of the Eomans, still browses in Hamilton Forest, near 

 Cadzow Castle, in Lanarkshire, and in a few other parks, but it is virtually extinct 

 as a wild animal. British bears, which excited much admiration at Rome, were 

 last heard of in the eleventh century, when a Gordon, as a reward for his valour in 

 killing one, was granted three bears* heads as a coat of arms. The wolf, during 

 Anglo-Saxon times, was a most destructive animal, and, to encourage its exter- 

 mination, wolves' tongues were accepted in expiation of certain crimes, and in 

 payment of the tribute exacted from the Welsh. But it survived, for all that, for 

 many centuries afterwards, and the last was killed in Scotland in 1680, and in 

 Ireland only in the beginning of the eighteenth century. The wild boar was 

 extirpated at the time of the Civil War, having been preserved up till then as a 

 favourite animal of chase. The beaver, even at the time when Giraldus Cambrensis 

 travelled in Wales, in 1188, had become scarce, and was confined to a few rivers 

 of that princijjality ; and birds, though far bettor able than land animals to elude 

 their pursuers, have become extinct almost within the memory of man. The original 

 capercailzie, or great cock of the wood, still frequent in Europe, and formerly in 

 the fir woods of Scotland and Ireland, has not been seen since 1760, whilst the great 

 bustard (Otis tarda) has disappeared more recently. The latter had its last home 

 on the downs of Wiltshire. 



The only wild carnivorous quadrupeds still forming part of the British fauna 

 are the fox, the badger, the otter, the weasel, the polecat, the stoat, the marten, 

 and the wild cat. All of these have become scarce, and the fox, at all events, 

 would have been exterminated long ago, if it were not for the protection extended 

 to it by the lovers of field sports. 



The ruminating animals are represented by the stag, or red deer, the roebuck, 

 and the fallow deer, the latter now extending to Ireland. The stag is confined 

 to the Highlands of Scotland, Exmoor Forest, and the woods of Killarney, but 

 formerly its range was far more extensive. Amongst gnawing animals are the 

 hare, rabbit, squirrel, and dormouse, together with a large variety of rats and 

 mice, whilst the insect eaters include the hedgehog and the mole, which are general 

 in fields and heaths throughout England. 



Yery considerable is the number of birds, not in species only, but also in 

 individuals, and since legislation has spread its sheltering mantle over most of 

 them, the day when British woods and fields will be without their feathered 



