mi PLEISTOCENE MAMMALIA. 



species respectively of northern and southern origin, the reindeer and the fallowdeer. In the 

 ' Orkneyinga Saga n the Earls Ronald and Harold are incidentally mentioned to have been 

 in the habit of crossing over to Caithness in the summer to hunt the reindeer and red deer. 

 The authors of the ' Saga' must have been well acquainted with the reindeer in Norway, 

 Sweden, and Ireland, and there is, therefore, nothing improbable in the inference that 

 the " Hreina " were undoubtedly reindeer. The Romans never conquered Caithness, and 

 the Highlands of Scotland were so strange to the English in the Middle Ages that, even 

 so late as the time of William III, they were looked upon very much as we now view the 

 extreme north of Lapland. The hills of Caithness lie in the same parallel of latitude as 

 the south of Norway and Sweden, in which countries the animal was living at the time. 

 Reindeer-moss is very abundant, and the only condition of life which is wanted to make 

 Scotland still habitable by the reindeer is a greater severity of cold. When we consider, also, 

 the abundance of the remains of the animal in the Scotch peat-bogs, and that it undoubtedly 

 was an article of food in the Neolithic age in that very district, there is every reason for 

 believing in the historical value of this incidental notice in the ' Saga.' We feel, therefore, 

 bound to admit the fact that the reindeer lived in Caithness during the time that Henry II 

 occupied the throne of England, and Alexander Neckam was writing his history. When 

 Caesar wrote his ' Commentaries ' the animal had certainly forsaken Gaul and taken refuge 

 in North Germany. Before his landing in Britain it had most likely departed from the 

 portion of the island which subsequently formed the Roman province of Britannia. If 

 this did not take place before the Stone or Bronze Age in England the animal must 

 have become very rare ; for, while other objects of the chase are represented by vast 

 quantities of bones, it is as yet unknown in deposits of these ages in England. It most 

 probably, therefore, had taken refuge in Caithness before our history began. It probably 

 became extinct in this country about the same time as the beaver. 



The second, or the semi-domesticated fallow-deer, was introduced by the Romans 

 probably along with the pheasant, 2 and its remains are found in their refuse-heaps at 

 London Wall and Colchester. In the Middle Ages it was an article of food almost as 

 common as the stag. 



1 ' Orkneyinga Saga,' ' Historia Orcadensium,' ' Jarla Saga,' 16/0, edit., Jonas Jonoens. 



2 Tbe pheasant is very generally considered to have been introduced into this country from the east 

 during tne Crusades, but is proved to have been sufficiently abundant in the neighbourhood of London to 

 be no very great luxury, in the middle of the 11th century, by the following passage, for which I am 

 indebted to Professor Stubbs : — " Erant autem tales pitantiae unicuique Canonico : A Festo Sancti Michaelis 

 usque ad caput jejunii aut xii merulse, aut ii agausese (agace — magpie, Ducange), aut ii perdices aut unus 

 phasianus reliquis temporibus aut ancae aut gallinae." ' De Inventione Sanctse Crucis nostrse in Monte 

 Acuto,' &c, edit. W. S. Stubbs, M.A., 1861. These allowances were made to each canon in Waltham Abbey 

 and their households by Harold, the founder, in 1059. The fact that the Romans certainly introduced the 

 fallow-deer, and their well-known habits of importing wild animals for sport, render it very probable that 

 they introduced the pheasant, since we do not owe any of our wild or semi-wild animals to English or to 

 Dane. The passage is also very interesting from the relative estimation in which the birds were held, and 

 from one pheasant being considered the equivalent of two magpies. 



