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CHANGES CAUSED BY MAN 



4 5 5 



Th- wild cat and fox have also been sacrificed tlirong-liont 

 the -reater part of the country, for the security of the poultry- 

 yard or the fold. Badgers have been expelled from nearly 

 everv district, which at former periods they inhabited. _ 



Besides these, w 



diich have been driven 



favourite haunts, and everywhere reduced in number, there 



some 



siicli as tlie 



ancient breed of indigenous horses, and the wild boar ; of 

 the wild oxen a few remains are still preserved m some of 

 the old Enghsh parks. The beaver, which is eagerly sought 

 after for its fur, had become scarce at the close of the ninth 

 century ; and, by the twelfth century, was only to be met 



Wale 



"WITH yjCCOliii-ii h\j v-'i xiuj-i-v-4-*-!-^^ ^-^^ .--'^-'^ — p 



and Inother in Scotland. The wolf, once so much dreaded 

 by our ancestors, is said to have maintained its ground m 

 Ireland so late as the beginning of the eighteenth century 

 (1710), though it had been extirpated in Scotland thirty years 

 before,' and in England at a much earlier period. The bear, 

 which' in Wales, was regarded as a beast of chase equal to 

 the hare or the boar, only perished, as a native of Scotland, 



in the year IQ^I* • 



Many native birds of prey have also been the subjects ot 

 unremitting persecution. The eagles, larger hawks, and 



mor 



The haunts of the mallard, the snipe, the redshank, and the 

 bittern, have been drained equally with the summer dwellings 

 of the lapwing and the curlew. But these species still linger 

 in some portion of the British Isles; whereas the larger 

 capercailzies, formerly natives of the pine-forests of Ireland 

 and Scotland, had been quite destroyed towards the close 

 of the last century, but were successfully reintroduced into 

 Perthshire about the year 1824, The egret and the crane, 

 w^hich appear to have been formerly very common in Scot- 

 land, are now only occasional visitants. f 



The bustard {Otis tarda), observes Graves, in his British 

 Ornithology, J ' was formerly seen on the downs and heaths 



* Fleming, Ed. Phil. Journ. No. xxii, 

 ^. 295. 



t Fleming, ibid., p. 292 

 J Vol. iii!' London, 1821 



