Quadrupeds. 713 



I shall postpone, upon the present occasion, any observations that 

 suggest themselves upon the sort of wild cattle mentioned in the Tri- 

 ads; for although the high prominences, for which they are there said 

 to be remarkable, seem rather to point to a very distinct division of 

 Bovidae, there are some grounds to suspect exaggeration in the state- 

 ment, and that these indigenous oxen may have been the remote 

 ancestors of our present stock. 



Beavers, the other indigenous animals found in Britain by the ori- 

 ginal settlers, must have been at all times scarce, though, in all proba- 

 bility, widely dispersed throughout the fenny districts of the country, 

 for their remains have been found in Berkshire, Cambridgeshire, 

 Yorkshire and elsewhere. At the present day they are confined to the 

 northerly climates of Europe, Asia and America, where they frequent 

 places remote from the dwellings of man, and abounding in wood and 

 water. As England at an early period became the most populous part 

 of the British isles, it is natural to suppose that these animals would 

 become extinct there, before any written record of their existence 

 could be taken ; but in the thinly inhabited districts of Wales, seve- 

 ral memorials of them have been transmitted to us. The laws of 

 Howel Dha, a Prince of Wales, who died in the year 948, present us 

 with the singular fact of the rarity of the beaver even at that early era ; 

 for, whilst he values the skin of the stag, the wolf, the fox and the ot- 

 ter, at only eight pence, that of the white weasel or ermine at twelve 

 pence, and of the marten at twenty-four pence, the skin of the beaver 

 is estimated therein at the high price of one hundred and twenty 

 pence. The Welsh gave it the very appropriate name of Llost- 

 llyddan, or Broad-tail ; and Giraldus, who accompanied Archbishop 

 Baldwin through Wales in 1188, states in his curious Itinerary, which 

 is still preserved to us, that the river Tivy in Cardiganshire, and one 

 other river, in Scotland, were the only places within Great Britain, 

 where beavers were then to be met with. As this is the last authen- 

 tic account of their existence within our island, we may fairly presume 

 that none survived the thirteenth century. 



I have now concluded this imperfect sketch of extinct quadrupeds 

 in the British isles. Before many years shall have elapsed, it is more 

 than probable that some, if not all of the wild animals, which are still 

 to be seen here, such as the marten, the wild cat, the stag and the roe, 

 may share the same fate : and it will in that case require some future 

 chronicler to rescue their memory from a similar oblivioxi to that, 

 which, without this humble effort, the above-mentioned brute inhabi- 

 tants of our ancient forests might possibly have been consigned. 



Rolleston Hall, August, 1844. OSWALD MoSLEV. 



