EXTERMINATION OF ANIMALS. 



191 



reign, large packs were kept for this diversion, which was eagerly 

 practised by the young nobles That otters were scarce in Hamp- 

 shire in Gilbert White's time, appears from his mentioning with such 

 delight that one was brought to him shot within his own parish. 



The badger (Meles Euvopcea), an animal that is frequently made the 

 object of much diabolical cruelty, has become considerably rarer in 

 England than formerly, though not so much so as the otter. 



The cat, though never a native of our island, yet was once wild in it. 

 Wild cats are now, however, very scarce, and only to be found in our 

 least frequented woods and forests f. They were the most ferocious 

 animals we had, and therefore it behoved the people to destroy them as 

 quick as possible ; and we accordingly find that sportsmen, by whom 

 they were considered as beasts of the chase, sallied forth for that pur- 

 pose. A specimen of the wild cat, from Scotland, may be seen in the 

 gardens of the Zoological Society. 



It is a well known fact, that our indigenous black rat (Mus rattus), 

 a species which was formerly universally diffused throughout Great 

 Britain, has become nearly extirpated in consequence of the introduc- 

 tion of the more powerful brown rat, generally called the Norway rat, 

 though it appears not to be an inhabitant of that country, but a native 

 of Persia, from whence we received it. Pennant states, that they 

 arrived in England about forty years before the time of his then writ- 

 ing (1768), and in Paris about seventeen years prior to that period, or 

 not until three-and-twenty years after their appearance in this country. 

 A modern writer, but of no celebrity, asserts that they appeared in 

 France towards the middle of the sixteenth century, and were first 

 observed in the neighbourhood of Paris. " Its first arrival, as I am 

 assured," says Goldsmith, <e was upon the coasts of Ireland, in those 

 ships that traded in provisions to Gribraltar ; and perhaps we owe to a 

 single pair of these animals the numerous progeny that now infests the 



* Brown's Sketches of Quadrupeds, p. 157. 



t Perhaps it will be long ere this country becomes entirely destitute of wild 

 cats ; for the existence of wide woody forests, well stocked with live prey, fre- 

 quently tempts cats reared in houses to forsake their domesticated life for one more 

 natural, and on that account, perhaps, preferable. " In Jamaica," says a female 

 writer on Natural History, " the domestic cat will sometimes become wild from 

 the quantity of food at all times to be found in the woods and mountains." I have 

 been informed that wild cats are at present more restricted to the hills and woods of 

 Scotland and Ireland than of England. — J. F. 



c c 2 



