i s 2 EXTINCT BRITISH ANIMALS. 



writers,* but we have not met with any proof of this. 

 Indeed, Professor Newton has lately been good 

 enough to inform us that he has forgotten his 

 authority for the statement, and thinks it possible a 

 reference to the MS. of his essay, which was not 

 preserved, would show that, by a typographical 

 error, the numerals VIII. were printed for VII. 



In Longstaffe's "Memoirs of the Life of Ambrose 

 Barnes/'t it is stated that " his immediate ancestors 

 held an estate of 500/. a year of the Earls of Rutland 

 and Belvoir, one of whom (a Barnes of Hatford near 

 Barnard Castle) was commonly called Ambrose ' Boast 

 wolf,' from the many wolves which he hunted 

 down and destroyed in the time of Henry VII. "\ 



In a footnote to this passage, the editor remarks 

 that " the statement must be taken cum grano salis. 

 Belvoir is not a title, and the Manners family did 

 not become Earls of Butland until 1525, in the reign 

 of Henry VIII. § On the other hand, the period of 

 VII. is late for wolves, although Richmondshire- 

 might well yield some of the latest specimens in 

 England. Doubtless they were familiarly associated 

 with wildness of country long after their extinction. 

 Many a tradition would linger in the families of their 

 destroyers. Ambrose ' Roast Wolf ' was probably a 

 real person of some date or other." 



* Wise's "New Forest, its History and its Scenery," p. 14. 



f "Memoirs of the Life of Mr. Ambrose Barnes, late Merchant 

 and sometime Alderman of Newcastle-upon-Tyne," p. 28. (Burtees- 

 Society, 1867.) 



% See also Longstaffe's " Durham before the Conquest," p. 49. 



§ It is possible that a typographical error may have been made here- 

 also, and that Ambrose " Roast Wolf " may have lived in the reign of 

 Henry VIII., not Henry VII. 



