44 J- WATSON : EXTINCT ANIMALS OF THE LAKE DISTRICT. 



In the bone- fissures of the district the remains of Wolves are 

 exceedingly numerous. Some fairly perfect skulls have been found, 

 one of which is unusually large. In times past, among the woods of 

 the fells, packs of Wolves simply swarmed. The Wolf survived in 

 the northern counties and in Scotland much longer than in the south 

 of the country — to the middle of the 17th century, in fact; and in 

 Ireland even twenty years later. So that the Wolf was the last to 

 survive of all the great extinct animals. A skulking marauder, it 

 found harbour among the thickets of the wooded hills, where few 

 cared to follow it. Its form, less bulky than that of the Bear or the 

 Reindeer, coupled with its crafty wariness, rendered it less con- 

 spicuous than other wild creatures. And these facts may account in 

 some measure for its late survival. When in summer and autumn 

 the woods abounded with game, the ravages of Wolves were both less 

 felt and noticed than in winter. At the latter season it was that the 

 packs of these animals banded themselves together, and became at 

 once a terror and a dread to the sparsely scattered populations. All 

 ordinary means of extermination failed, and the Wolf reigned through 

 severe winters as a terrible power for evil to be guarded against, 

 even in many of the ordinary outdoor occupations of the period, 

 evolves had their dens, to which they dragged their prey and reared 

 their young, among the smaller caves and rocks of the thickets, and 

 it was when these latter were produced, that circumstances best 

 offered for their destruction ; and thus it is that we find in the 

 records kept by the religious houses of the time the items of Wolves' 

 heads, upon which prices were set. Those items were the equivalents 

 to the entries of the heads of Foxes, Badgers, Martens, Wild Cats, 

 Eagles, and Ravens of a later period, or even of our own day. The 

 Wolf-occurrences in the two counties are so numerous that we cannot 

 enumerate them. 



The remains of Red Deer and Roe occur in enormous quantities, 

 especially the first. Both are indigenous, though the Fallow Deer 

 was introduced from the continent by the Romans, and the few 

 remains found are probably those of animals which, after their first 

 introduction, reverted to a feral condition. The pronged Roe and 

 the Fallow Deer trooped the old woods, whilst the Red Deer stuck 

 to the mountains. These last were much larger than the semi- 

 domestic ones which to-day still survive on Exmoor and our own 

 Martindale fells — as the bones and antlers dug up from time to time 

 testify. 



Wild Cats, Badgers, Otters, and Martens abounded everywhere, 

 as did the Golden and White-tailed Eagles, Kites, and all the larger 

 birds of prey. 



Naturalist, 



