MAMMALS EXTINCT IN THE BRITISH ISLANDS 
WITHIN HISTORIC TIMES 
There are five interesting wild animals which have become extinct in 
our islands within historic times, namely, the Wolf, the Brown Bear, 
the Beaver, the Reindeer, and the Wild Boar. 
THE WOLF. 
Canis tupiiSy Linnseus. 
This species was once so numerous as to be a scourge in many parts 
of the land, and appears to have survived to a later period than any of 
the others on the list. The many place-names referring to the presence 
of the animal in widely separated localities show how prevalent it was 
in past days, and how great an impression it made on the imagination 
of the people in their homes when the Wolf had literally to be kept from 
the door, and when places of refuge had to be constructed to shelter 
travellers among lonely moors and forests. 
In England, where it is said to have lingered till about the beginning of 
the sixteenth century, it had disappeared long before the last were killed 
in Scotland and Ireland. 
In Scotland the great uncleared forests of the Highlands harboured 
the Wolf until much later, so that it survived there to a comparatively 
recent date, the last being probably the "four old ones and some whelps" 
IOO 
