34 THE BOOK OF A NATURALIST 



one writes a book on the mammals of this 

 island, which has no monkeys or lemurs, and man 

 cannot be included in such works on account 

 of an old convention or prejudice, he is obliged 

 to give the proud first place to this very poor 

 relation. 



It is his misfortune, since it would have been 

 more agreeable to the general reader if he could 

 have led off with some imposing beast — the extinct 

 wolf or tusky wild boar, for example — or, better 

 still, with the white cattle of Chillingham, or the 

 roaring stag with his grand antlers. The last is 

 an undoubted survival, one which, encountered in 

 some incult place where it is absolutely free and 

 wild, moves us to a strange joy — an inherited 

 memory and a vision of a savage, prehistoric land 

 of which we are truer natives than we can ever be 

 of this smooth sophisticated England. The science 

 of zoology could not have it so, since it does not 

 and cannot take man and his mental attitude 

 towards other forms of life into account — cannot 

 consider the fact that he is himself an animal of 

 prey, several feet high, with large eyes fitted to 

 look at large objects, and that he measures and 

 classifies all creatures by an instinctive rule and 

 standard, mentally pitting his strength and ferocity 

 against theirs. What a discrepancy, then, between 

 things as seen by the natural man and as they 

 appear in our scientific systems, which make the 

 small negligible bat the leader of the procession of 

 British beasts — even this repulsive little rearmouse, 



