﻿INTRODUCTION. xv 



All these animals are still living in Britain at the present moment, except the Irish 

 elk (Megaceros Hibernicus), which is entirely extinct ; the reindeer and moose (Alces 

 malchis), which are now confined to the colder regions of Northern Europe, Asia, and 

 America ; and the Bos longifrons, and B. primigenius, the beaver, the wolf, the wild boar, 

 and the Ursus arctos, which lived on these into the Historical period. The Bos longifrons 

 — which, in our opinion, will ultimately be found to be specifically identical with Bos 

 taurus — was the variety that supplied the Roman legionaries in Britain with beef; 1 the 

 Ursus arctos was probably, from an allusion of Martial, 2 exported to Rome for the sports 

 in the theatre ; and the beaver was still living in the river Teivy, in Cardiganshire, when 

 in 1188, Giraldus Cambrensis accompanied Archbishop Baldwin on his tour through 

 Wales to collect volunteers for the First Crusade. This latter animal, according to 

 Boethius, lingered on in Loch Ness till the fifteenth century. The wolves, sufficiently 

 abundant in the Andreads Wold to eat up the corpses of the Saxons left on the field by 

 Duke William 3 after the Battle of Hastings, lingered on in England till 1306, in Scotland 

 till 1680, and in Ireland, protected by the uncultivated wilds and the misrule of the 

 country, until the year 1710. The last wild boar was destroyed in the reign of Charles I. 



The Irish elk {Megaceros Hibernicus), whose remains are so very abundant in the 

 Pleistocene deposits, is the only species that can be proved to have become extinct in the 

 Prehistoric period. 



Whether or no the great Urus and the small short-horn (Bos longifrons) be extinct, or 

 live, the one in the larger domestic cattle of Europe, as the Flemish oxen, 4 and those of 

 Holstein and Friesland, the other in the smaller breeds, has not yet been satisfactorily 

 decided. 



In the Prehistoric period the dog, the goat, and the sheep, make their appearance for 

 the first time in the world's history. Bos longifrons also has not yet been proved to have 

 lived in the preceding period, the evidence for its coexistence with the extinct Pleistocene 

 mammalia being founded on some remains cast up by the sea at Clacton and Walton, which 

 therefore may have been derived from a much later deposit than the Preglacial Forest-bed. 



The remains of the Irish elk and the reindeer may, perhaps, indicate an earlier division 

 of the Prehistoric period, but upon this point we must be content to wait for more evidence. 

 The occurrence of the latter animal in Prehistoric deposits proves that in Britain, as in the 



1 See Boyd Dawkins, * Sussex Archaeological Collections,' vol. xvi. 

 2 " Nuda Caledonio sic pectora praebuit urso 

 Non falsa pendens in cruce Laureolus." 



3 ' De bello Hastingensi Carmen,' by Guido, Bishop of Amiens, who died in 1075. 



" Lustravit campum, tollens et caesa suorum, 

 Corpora, Dux, terrae condidit in gremio ; 

 Vermibus atque lupis avibus canibusque voranda, 

 Deserit Anglorum corpora strata solo." 



4 As Professors Nilsson and Riitimeyer suggest 'Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist.,' 1849; 'Fauna der 

 Pfahlbauten,' 4to, Basle. 



