710 Quadrupeds. 



Historical Notices of certain Quadrupeds formerly existing in Great 

 Britain, and the probable periods of their extinction. By Sir 

 Oswald Mosley, Bart., F.L.S., &c. 

 A degree of interest is naturally excited in the human mind, by 

 the investigation of subjects over which antiquity has cast a shade ; 

 the very obscurity wherein they are enveloped, tends to increase the 

 ardor with which such a task is undertaken. It will not be, then, I 

 trust, a fruitless occupation, to gather together the scattered notices, 

 which we find in ancient writers, of wild animals formerly existing in 

 this kingdom. There was, indeed, a more primeval race of animals, 

 which lived and died here, before any memorialist was in being to 

 record their existence, but whose history is indelibly marked by their 

 fossil remains in our various geological strata. I am not aware that 

 any publication has yet issued from the press, in which these relics of 

 past ages are arranged in any tolerable order, or are brought, as it 

 were, at one view, within the scope of our imagination, with the single 

 exception of Dr. Buckland's work; and any attempt of the kind upon 

 the present occasion, would far exceed the limits of my researches. 

 In the remarks I am about to make, I shall briefly notice a few of the 

 extinct denizens of our woods and waters, respecting which some his- 

 torical allusions are to be met with, and endeavour to trace the pro- 

 bable periods when they severally ceased to exist in this island. 



There are several collections of historical Triads still extant in the 

 Welsh language, which Mr. York, in his ' Royal Tribes,' supposes to 

 have been compiled about the year 650. One of the most complete 

 of these Triads has been printed in the 'Archaeology of Wales,' from a 

 manuscript dated 1601, wherein the writer states that it was taken out 

 of the books of Caradoc of Llancarven, who lived in the 12th cen- 

 tury : — the antiquity of these documents is therefore indisputable. 

 From this authority we learn, that the Kymri, a Celtic tribe, first in- 

 habited Britain ; and that before them were no Men here, but only 

 bears, wolves, beavers and oxen with high prominences. The fact of 

 the first-mentioned of these animals being indigenous, is fully corro- 

 borated by passages in the works of several classical authors. Mar- 

 tial makes mention of the cruel exposure of the robber Laureolus to 

 a Caledonian bear, while hanging on a cross: Claudian, in his praises 

 of Stilicho, alludes to British bears : and Camden refers to Plutarch, 

 as an authority for the same, although I have not been able to find 

 any such passage in his works. The Emperor Claudius, upon his re- 

 turn to Rome from the conquest of Britain, exhibited, among other 

 concomitants of his triumph, combats of British bears. But we have 



