The Flora of England 



late as the twelfth century ; in the southern parts 

 there is no record of them, and they are now 

 represented by the harmless badger. But wolves 

 were probably abundant ; the great forests would 

 have given them all the shelter they required, and 

 when we see how they still live and increase even 

 near the most civilised parts on the Continent, it 

 says something for the vigorous way in which 

 their destruction was carried out in England, that 

 for at least six hundred years they have entirely 

 disappeared, though in Ireland they still remained 

 till the beginning of the eighteenth century. These 

 are the chief large animals that mark the difference 

 between the two periods; all our other mammalia 

 are the same, some slightly altered by years of 

 domestic training as domestic animals, but in the 

 wild animals there is probably little or no difference. 

 In one point, however, there is a curious difference 

 between two animals, looking at them as articles 

 of food, the fox and the hare. By the early 

 Britons the fox was certainly eaten, while the 

 hare was never eaten by them — leporem. gustare 

 fas non putant (Cses. B.G. vi. 12), as it is still not 

 eaten by the Laplanders ; with us the hare stands 

 high as a food, while I believe not even a gipsy 

 would eat a fox. With the birds the case is very 

 much the same ; there is very little difference 

 between the wild birds of the two periods. There 

 are some introductions, as the pheasant, the 

 turkey, and the guinea hen, and we now eat the 

 goose and the hen, which the ancient Briton did 

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