w PLEISTOCENE MAMMALIA. 



days there were not seldom great massacres of foxes, to which the peasantry thronged 

 with all the dogs that could be mustered ; traps were set, nets were spread, no quarter 

 was given, and to shoot a female with cub was considered a feat which merited the 

 warmest gratitude of the neighbourhood." 1 



The stag was so abundant in the south of England, as recently as the reign of Queen 

 Anne, that while en route between London and Portsmouth she saw a herd of no less 

 than four hundred. From her days the number of wild species in Great Britain has 

 suffered no diminution, since the more formidable animals had already been destroyed. 



After the English invasion, when the populous Roman province of Britain had 

 been devastated by fire and sword, wolves increased to such a degree that 

 they are deemed worthy of notice in the public records. At Flixton, near Eiley, 

 in Yorkshire, writes Camden, 2 an hospital was built in the time of JEthelstan 

 for defending travellers from wolves, that they should not be devoured by 

 them. In the reign of one of his successors, Eadgar, we hear of a tribute 

 of three hundred wolves' heads laid on Ludwal, a prince of Merioneth, who, according to 

 William of Malmesbury, paid this tribute for three years, and desisted on the fourth, 

 because he could not find any more. 3 He very likely drove them out of his territory, 

 but they still continued numerous in other places. The statement in the metrical 

 account of the battle of Hastings, that Duke William collected and buried his own slain, 

 while he left the English a prey to the birds and wolves, 4 is probably literally true, 

 because the tangled thickets of the Andredsweald must have been the lurking places of 

 wolves at the time. In 1281 they had increased so much in the counties of Gloucester, 

 Worcester, Hereford, Shropshire, and Stafford, that one Peter. Corbet was ordered by 

 Edward I to destroy them by any means that he could. 6 This is the last historical notice 

 which I have been able to verify. Camden, however, mentions them as formerly infesting 

 the Peak country, and there is said to be preserved at Exeter a record in which they are 

 mentioned as infesting Devonshire after this time. Taking everything into consideration it 

 seems very probable that they were exterminated in England and Wales before the end 



1 'History of England,' vol. i,i858. 



2 Camden's 'Britannia,' edit. Gibson, vol. ii, p. 110. 



3 Wil. Malm., ii, 155, vol. i, p. 251, edit. Hardy. 



4 'De Bello Hastingensi Carmen,' by Guido, Bishop of Amiens. 



5 'Rymer Fcedera,' folio, Lond. 1705, p. 168. 1281, An. 9 E. I. "Rex omnibus Ballivis, &c. 

 Sciatis quod injunximus dilecto atque fideli nostro Peter Corbet quod in omnibus Forestis et Parcis, et aliis 

 locis infra comitatus nostras Gloucestr. Wygorn. Hereford. Salop, et Stafford, in quibus lupi poterunt 

 inveniri, lupos cum hominibus, canibus et ingeniis suis capiat, atque destruat modis omnibus quibus 

 videntur expedire. 



" Et ideo vobis mandamus quod eidem Petro in omnibus, quae ad captionem luporum in comitatibus 

 prsedictis pertinent, intendentes sitis et auxiliantes, quotiens opus fuerit et prsedictus Petrus vobis scire 

 faciet ex parte nostra. In cujus &c. duratur quamdiu nobis placuerit. Teste Rege apud Westminst. 

 decimo quarto die Maii." 



