MAMMALS 



extensive ; and, above all, the intrusion of man into every nook and corner of 

 districts which long were sanctuaries for every beast of the field, are all having 

 a reducing effect on its mammalian, especially its carnivorous, fauna. The 

 fox, the otter, the badger, and the pine marten are becoming rarer every year, 

 and will soon have passed altogether, if indeed the last-named, together, too 

 probably, with the wild cat, has not already become extinct in Lancashire. 

 The charming diminutive harvest mouse, whose grass-ball nest filled with 

 tiny young was ever the delight of the old-time scythe-man, has been all but 

 exterminated by the modern reaping machine. 



The present fauna has, however, long lost its most imposing members. It 

 would have been possible a few centuries ago to have seen wild, amid the 

 uplands of lakeland Lancashire and in the open glades and in the once 

 dense but now vanished forests of the plain, some noble and formidable 

 quadrupeds. The wolf, whose lair was among the crags of the Pennines 

 and the Fells, was only finally exterminated in the seventeenth century. 

 Innumerable wild boars infested the woods, and large beaver communities 

 the banks of many of the streams. Herds of red-deer, generally more 

 splendidly antlered than the species is to-day, roamed over the opener parts 

 of the county till the close of the seventeenth century. If tradition 

 may be trusted, one of the last retreats where the wild white cattle of 

 Britain, the direct offspring — probably mingled with other blood — of the 

 urus, lived and bred unparked and in a state of nature was the far-extending 

 ancient forest of Bowland, just as they had ' bredde in times [longer] paste 

 at Blakele.' Hence, doubtless, was obtained the foundation of those herds 

 which during the past 500 years or more were enclosed in parks in many 

 parts of Lancashire, such as at Houghton Tower, Whalley Abbey, and 

 Middleton HaU, where the cattle roamed in a quite undomesticated state. 

 According to Leigh's History of Lancashire, the herd of Sir Ralph Ashton at 

 the last-mentioned hall was still wild as late as the year 1700, and apparently 

 the bulls still sported flowing manes, an ancestral heritage which is generally 

 hardly to be discerned in the majority of their male descendants to-day. 

 Various other domestic breeds appear to have been specially reared in the 

 county. The author just quoted notes that ' Lancashire ... is most remark- 

 able for breeding Cattle of a size more than Ordinary large, particularly 

 about Burnley and Maudsley, from which places I have known Cattle sold at 

 extraordinary rates, an heifer sometimes amounting to ^15 or ^20 ; the 

 ground they feed upon is usually upon an ascent, and the grass shorter than 

 in lower grounds.' A native breed of cattle which has now become nearly 

 extinct had long horns, a thick firm textured hide with long thick shaggy 

 hair variable in colour, large hoofs, and a coarse thick neck. Baines, too, 

 speaks of ' a herd of black sheep which used to graze on the pastures of 

 Higher Furness, furnishing wool that in former times rendered the woollen 

 manufacture of Kendal and Cartmel famous throughout England.' The 

 Haslingden sheep are probably the remains of the ancient Lancashire horned 

 breed which had a grey face and carried a heavy fleece. The Hard wick 

 breed in Higher Furness, which is hornless, produces short wool, and has the 

 face and legs speckled. Any detailed notice, however, of the species of mammals 

 which once inhabited the county, but have been entirely removed from the 

 roll of living creatures, must be left to the palasontologist to supply. 



207 



